


Left Behind as Static

by mistresspiece



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Canon, And Also Gordon Ramsay, Bonding, Character Study, Depression, Drama, Everyone Lives and Everything is Awful, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Infidelity, Inspired by Music, Introspection, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Alex and Jessica, Psychological Drama, Recovery, Romance, Sexual Content, Substance Abuse, Suicide Attempt, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-01-04 02:24:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 177,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistresspiece/pseuds/mistresspiece
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>This life is but an echo of a lost broadcast</i><br/><i>Our voices and our loves, just as crackles in static</i><br/><i>I don't want to be left behind here</i><br/><i>When all my others have become as music</i><br/>- A Forest of Stars</p><p>After escaping the Operator's influence with just enough sanity for one between them, Tim, Jay and Brian are all left to piece together what they can and find something with which to fill the rest of their lives.  With three very different ideas about reconciling the past - running from it blindly, combing it for answers, picking a fight with it - who has the right of it?  And how far can you stray from a normal life without losing the trail altogether?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Crescendo

**Author's Note:**

> Assuming things went very differently after the posting of Entry #82. Credit for all quoted song lyrics goes to their attributed sources, and are reproduced here for non-profit purposes with no infringement or claim to authorship intended. The quoted songs can be listened to [here](http://mistresspiece.tumblr.com/soundtrack).

_Existence, well, what does it matter?_  
 _I exist on the best terms I can_  
 _The past is now part of my future_  
 _The present is well out of hand_  
\- Joy Division

His tie isn't going to get any straighter. Checking himself one last time - clean pressed shirt, shined shoes, memorised list of extra questions to ask, near-empty resume he hopes to God will serve some purpose beyond giving him something on which to wipe his dampened palms - Brian knocks on the door. His hand falters, barely brushing the wood. To make a sound is to commence this thing and make it real. You only get one first impression and in light of that, this corridor is looking way more appealing than it did as he first walked along it half a minute ago. There's an intermittent ring of clinking glass behind him and footsteps hurrying to and fro with food, wafting strong savoury smells that do nothing for the twisting in his stomach. His palate is unused to anything so rich and the snatches of scents are familiar, but unplaceable, like memories from a dream.

He can see the bar, just, through a frosted glass partition. Quieter than he'd pictured, but then it's only noon. Easy enough to picture the place dimly lit, heaving with revelry, and himself keeping the drink flowing at the helm. Having music and colour and a constant flow of people around him is probably just what he needs to feel like himself again. But right now the whole place is brightly lit and shining and clean in a way he just isn't used to and, though there's only a handful of people in, every passing eye turns in his direction.

 _What am I doing here_? Any way he chooses to explain the last seven years, they're going to see right through it. They're going to take one look at him in that room and _know_. He doesn't belong here and the movement obscured by the frosted glass makes this abundantly clear. "So, what did your last job involve that pertains to this position, Brian?" _Well, I'm used to being awake at all hours, and I'm in good shape to work on my feet thanks to all the sneaking around and breaking and entering and, uh... I know my way around this area with my eyes covered. Literally._ It's hopeless.

 _And now you're starting to sound like Tim_. A little laugh escapes his clenched jaw at the striking similarity. He's lost count of the number of times they've had this conversation, whenever Tim had to attempt something unfamiliar, only it's usually Brian on the other side of it.

He runs one hand over his new haircut, the unruly briar of dark blonde curls tamed with close cropping. It suits him, and he knows it, and so does his new red shirt. He looks down, and damn, that's a shiny pair of shoes. _You handsome fucker, who wouldn't hire you_? The knot in his gut loosens a little, and he knocks again. Surer this time. Brazen, almost. Come to think he really ought to have some kind of entry music - a brisk fanfare, perhaps, rising to a clamour with big drums. Stepping into daylight feels like something that should be heralded.

A chirpy voice inside calls him in. There's two men and a woman on the other side of the table, all smiling and bidding him to take a seat. He does what the careers website told him to and sits straight with a smile, holding out his hands to suggest sincerity, but he can't quite meet anyone's eye. Instead he shifts focus to the water jug before him and a crude oil painting of a forest on the far wall, ugly red thrown like blood against slashes of green leaves on a dull brown surround. Nevertheless he compliments the decor of the whole place and they run through chit-chat, his name, his prior work, such as it is. This time around he'll be cleaning glasses, at first. Monotonous, predictable, nothing he has to think about. It's sounding better by the minute.

"Well, actually, I think the customer is wrong quite a lot of the time, and secretly mocking how very wrong they are makes it a little easier to act like they're right," he says, and it elicits the round of chuckles he was hoping for. Under the weight of expectation, he can't keep the grin off his face imagining himself behind the bar, flirting for tips and handing out 'the usual' to regulars he can't wait to get to know.

"Why are you even here?"

The question out of nowhere is almost barked, and Brian blinks like cornered prey caught off guard. Maybe that's the plan. To see how he reacts to a sudden change in tone. Brian's used to surprises, and this is a pretty mild one by the standards he's used to, so he draws a deep breath and begins.

"Why do I want this position? Well, as you can see, there's quite a few gaps in my resume here." It's got to be a good idea to bring it up himelf, show he has nothing to hide, maybe even intrigue them a little. "I was in a band for a few years - I play guitar. I was making enough to live on for a while there, but then, uh... we had a label interested, but turns out they only wanted our singer, and he went for it. A real Judas. It kind of fell apart after that, so I'm just looking for a steady income. And I'm... drawn to this position because, well, I'm pretty sociable and I don't think I could go back to being stuck behind a desk all day after that. I'm used to working at strange hours, and I've done a couple of shows where things got kind of rowdy, so I feel pretty confident I could diffuse that kind of situation."

 _Nailed it_. With that answer Brian has definitely earned himself a cookie from the intimidatingly untouched plate in front of him. Things seem to be livening up ever so slightly next door, between the ambient mumbling of customers and the increase in the tempo of ringing glasses. Much friendlier.

"Put that down! Jesus!"

Like it's corrosive Brian drops the offending confection back onto the plate and folds his hands on his lap where they can do no more harm. He's not sure which of the three took objection and can't bring himself to look up and find out.

"You fucking lunatic!"

The careers website definitely didn't prepare him for this.

Brian's vision is swimming. There's a dazzling reflection from the overhead light onto the polished tabletop before him, and then the light seems to bleed over the surface until it's all he can see, and he screws up is his eyes to shield from it, and then he's awake. His heart's going like a subwoofer and a film of sweat coats his skin as his eyes adjust to the light. He'd fallen alseep without switching his lamp off. That's all.

He takes stock of the surroundings in case he dreamed all of the last few months and he's back under a hood in that God-forsaken shack in the forest. But no. This really is Tim's spare room. There's a roof above him and rumpled sheets below. The walls are close in a way that feels safe, holding in warmth and leaving little room for dark things to hide. The photo his mother gave him last week of the neice he hasn't met yet rests next to his head.

He's here, but his interview went horribly. _No_ \- it's the night before the interview, or the day of it, judging by the bluish hue coming through the window.

The clock on the wall reads ten to five in the morning. He's virtually no chance of getting back to sleep with his heart pounding like this, but at least he's not going home to say he screwed up his interview over a damn biscuit, of all things. He's still here. The steady ticking of the clock is real. The pitter-patter of rain on the glass is real.

And the noise from the living room is definitely real. The source of the ravings in his dream becomes immediately apparent. _Here we go again_.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a job when you have to explain gaps in your resume that come down to _mental health problems_? _Have you ever even had to work a real fucking job_?"

So wails Tim's voice, strained into a hoarse cry that hurts Brian's throat just hearing it. On he goes, much as he did the last time. Jay's speaking now, in a low mumble Brian can't make out. Whatever it is, a moment of deadly loaded quiet follows it. Then Tim begins again. His quieter intonation feels like the silence before the scare. Brian pulls a pillow over his head for the sake of both his peace and their privacy, but evidently, it's not going to be enough.

"Okay, Jay. There's never been any love lost between you and reality so I'm going to explain it to you, and please listen, because I'm only explaining it once."

"I was -"

"Shut up and listen! What happens is that I turn up at my job every day and I get a certain amount of money per hour -"

"Tim!"

"As of right now I get the least amount of money they can get away with giving me by law, but that's beside the point - the point is that I then make this money which - and this is the clever part - I can exchange for goods and services. It's great. You should try it some time."

Mildly amusing though it is Brian - who's really left with no option but to listen in, given that Tim's forgotten about his indoor voice and his headphones are caught in the crossfire - wants to storm in and duct tape Tim's mouth shut. Yes, if he were to lick a piece of litmus paper it would come away scarlet, and it's all very clever. Meanwhile, if Jay got home after Brian went to bed that means he's too wasted to even appreciate the joke, let alone take any of the valid points Tim has cloaked in sarcasm to heart.

"Fuck you!"

Jay makes his argument clearly enough. Brian props himself on one elbow and teeters, looking at the door. Perhaps he should be going in there to broker peace instead of lying here critiquing their debate skills. The _put it down_ he heard during his half-remembered nightmare rings ominously in his ears, his mind concocting vivid and increasingly dangerous scenarios based around what 'it' could be.

"And so the more hours I work, the more -"

" _Fuck you_!"

"What I'm basically saying, if I'm putting it in terms too hard for you to understand, is that I work my _ass off_ so that we can eat, and I'm so sorry if you're feeling neglected while you sit in my house and do nothing, but hey, at least if I'm out all day it gives you more time to drink my money and screw other men when I'm fending for all of us!"

Brian's up and alert and poised on the brink of pulling the door open. The neighbours must love them. By now the others living on their street surely have to be used to cries of... other natures coming from the room Tim and Jay share, and maybe it's harder for them to differentiate. Brian never thought he'd miss the lewd whimpers coming from Tim's room, or the bitter, X-rated version of counting sheep he used to play where he tried to stack up the years since he'd been in the same situation to get himself back to sleep, but it's amazing what two weeks in a warzone will put into perspective.

"Leave me alone! I said I was sorry!" bawls Jay, whether in response to Tim or his general conviction that the world is out to get him, Brian can't say.

"Well, wow, that means none of it ever happened. And I'm just a terrible person because I can't pretend like that. If you want me to leave you alone then _fine_. I'm fucking done with this."

 _"Don't walk away from me!"_ Jay's voice rises an octave into a mangled screech he's never heard before, breaking off into sobs. Icy fear stabs at Brian's chest, and when he hears the sound of something smashing, it's time to move. _Was that_ glass?

He's out of bed and pulling on a robe. From the end of the corridor rises an unintelligible cacophony that must serve more as a venting exercise than a real attempt to convey something to the other. It's punctuated occasionally by screeched expletives and clunks and crashes - he winces at each one, terrifyingly mysterious in origin. His limbs aren't doing what he wants them to and he misses an armhole a couple of times, even as he's on his way, wiping the last of the crust from his eyes. There's another clatter in the living room, this time louder, several unknown objects smashing in symphony.

Brian stumbles to the open crack of the door in time to see Tim emerge from his makeshift foxhole behind the arm of the couch. Jay's out of sight, but the sound of heavy breathing and manic string of swear words places him in the corner of the room by the TV.

Seeing Tim frightened is nothing new. The late night phone calls when his brain was telling him the trees outside his window had grown fingers, or the panic attacks after he thought he'd said the wrong thing to someone in small talk. Both were easy and abstract, and nothing like the maelstrom Brian's about to walk into. This threat is decidedly corporeal and growing more unstable all the time, and he's never seen Tim so afraid, clinging to the post in the kitchen like he's going to be swept away.

But it's not just the breathless shouting and the wide-eyed horror and the desperate way he clutches at the safe solidity of the concrete. It's the tremble of his lower lip and the tears in his eyes as he looks past Brian, pleading, at the opposite corner of the room, that really breaks his heart.

Brian nudges the door open by degrees, alerting the combatants to his entrance slowly enough that he can – _I hope_ \- gauge their reaction. He flinches when the doorknob rattles when he touches it and the adrenaline that pushed him out of bed wilts away in the face of the mangled vista he's presented with. Tim stands panting and dishevelled, a boxer waiting for the bell. Jay, intoxicated instigator, is crumpled in the corner and cradling a half-empty bottle of low quality vodka. His previous tipple lies in pieces by Tim's feet and there's a shining trail of smashed CDs in a line across the room, separating them. The overturned rack lies on its side nearby. A number of the broken discs were probably Brian's, but that's neither here nor there. If they've noticed him, they're too occupied staring daggers into one another to acknowledge it.

Tim's out of words. It's gone too quiet. Then an unidentified ornament flies from Jay's hand across Brian's line of vision, faster than he's able to react. Fortunately, Tim's waiting for it and ducks out of the way. The spray of white dust that follows the crash marks it as porcelain. _Good to know_. A cry of anguish from Jay and a scuffle in the corner alerts Brian to movement. Everything switches to slow motion. Jay's pulled himself to his feet and takes a few lurching steps forward, fist raised. Brian's running too and then the carpet is coming up to meet them, stinging his cheek as he lands. Brian hasn't done that since football games in college, and though his physique isn't what it it was back then, Jay was never very strong to begin with.

"Get off of me! Get _off_!"

Incapacitated by alcohol he isn't hard to impede, but he's fighting like a snared animal underneath Brian sprawled across him. He's only wearing boxers and a worse-for-wear cotton T-shirt, and while Brian isn't keen for Jay to add 'friction burns' to the long list of afflictions he'll be dealing with next time he wakes up, no part of setting him loose seems like a good idea.

"Jay, if I let you up, are you -"

"I can't _breathe_!"

The breathlessness and the desperate floundering could be alcohol-based rage, or they could be signifying another panic attack. Brian stands abruptly, ready to spring if necessary. It's not. Jay's silenced by the forcing of air into his lungs, and he has to use the couch to pull himself, quaking, to his feet. He wavers. Then he raises his face, feral eyes and curled lip, and takes another swing at Tim. Tim only stands, watching with a raised eyebrow as he loses balance and spins around, dropping like a spinning top. It's only Brian's quick reaction that stops him cracking his head open on the counter.

Jay's in his arms and still struggling, but fitfully and with no force. It feels less of an effort to free himself than it does a desperate refusal to admit surrender - that or he's worn himself out. Tim and his belongings are safe, but Brian isn't sure where to go from here.

"Get him out of my sight." Tim turns to the window, wrapping a band-aid around a mysterious injury to his middle finger and burning through a cigarette Brian never saw him light. He practically growls it in affected disgust, but a hitch in his breath at the end betrays him.

He doesn't know what to do other than lift Jay up and pull him into the bedroom. Beneath the wriggling Brian can feel most of his ribs and the hammering of his heart in his hollow chest. Given that Jay's main food groups are caffeine and alcohol it shouldn't be surprising, but it's shocking to have the evidence of whatever breakdown he's going through presented in such a visceral way. It's like an alarm clock ringing to alert him to just how not okay things are in Jay's head, and as if he's cringing away from the noise, Brian can't stand to feel Jay's skinny body much longer. He gets him to the door to their room and throws him onto the bed.

For a moment he waits in case Jay tries to lunge for escape again. Once he looks around and realises where he is he just huddles up at the far edge of the bed and doesn't even seem to notice when he rolls onto the floor. Only choked sobbing gives away the fact that he's still conscious, but when Brian walks around the other side to check he hasn't hurt himself, he doesn't even bother to look up. Like he's deflated. Like he thinks there's nothing out there for him anyway.

Brian backs away and avoids sudden movement, but it'll be a relief to get out of this room. He already feels like he's violated some unwritten rule by even crossing the threshold. An open book lies on each bedside table. In contrast to the scene he's just witnessed, it's sinister in its proximity to ordinary domestic bliss. By way of apology he closes the door and drags a bookcase in front of it. Hardly a foolproof restraint, but at least they'll be warned with a bang if Jay gets up for round two.

As he makes his way back into the living room Brian wishes the corridor was longer. The careful organisation Jay has deconstructed glitters with sharp edges and jagged scratches Brian's bare feet have to weave around. Did he go for the CD rack to hit Tim where it hurts, or is he too out of it to think that much? Maybe he just wanted the biggest blast radius.

It wouldn't be right to go back to bed without saying anything. He clears his throat, a warning shot. "Tim? You okay?"

He's hunched over the sink, his back to Brian and what's left of his interior design, the life he imagined they'd have together. "Oh, yeah. I'm just fine."

Tim has two crying modes. There's the one where he sobs and hugs himself because no-one else seems willing to do it, and there's the other, where he's as rigid as a cornered animal and only missing the poison spines. His temper can grow prickly and venomous enough to compensate, so it's best to back away. Brian's up against the latter now, judging by the rigid shoulders and the white-knuckle grip on the counter.

It's clear that the last couple of weeks have been building to this, but Brian still can't think of anything to say or do. Going back to bed now would be not only pointless, but he'd feel the same as he would sneaking out of a stranger's room at an unearthly hour instead of facing the music in the morning. The idea of trying to sleep with all this still strewn over the floor is going to be an itch he can't scratch, so he runs for a bag to start cleaning it up.

"Leave it," Tim hisses. "I'll get it tomorrow." Then he grabs his car keys and marches out the door. He slams it behind him, just so Jay knows what he's done, or for the benefit of anyone else in the neighbourhood who wasn't already awake with them.

 _What do I do now_?

This house isn't big enough for fights, and he knows he's only half-welcome. Jay doesn't trust anyone as far as he can tell, but on the rare occasions they're alone his eyes never leave Brian, and if Tim's around Jay will refuse to even acknowledge him. _Not that I can blame him_. Brian can't wholly trust himself, either, but he at least knows it's true when he says he wasn't in control of much of what went on under the hood. When he tries to remember the whys and hows of it, it's just static and motion blur. More than that, though, he's trying to keep his nose out. Maybe that's a lesson all three of them have to learn. He's thinking of getting 'Curiosity Killed the Cat' translated into Latin and putting it on a house coat of arms. There'd be a camera, a hood, a pill bottle, and - _and_ _you're digressing_.

But it's easier than trying to work out how to help people who don't want help. The image of Jay hurling the ornament across the room is replaying on a loop behind his eyes; Christ knows where they'd all be know if his aim was better. It's a fifty-fifty between the emergency room and the police station. What-iffing's not going to help, no more than breaking in with platitudes would. For now, it's coffee time; Tim surely won't begrudge him use of the machine, not when there are real world things to worry about.

If the prospect of a job interview is less frightening in comparison to tonight's entertainment, it nevertheless feels more like a fool's errand than ever after only a few hours' sleep. There's optimism and there's denial. But hey, at least now he can add that he has experience breaking up drunken brawls - or is that suggesting their establishment is less classy than they want to believe?

He shakes his head to stop thinking of that suggestion seriously, and runs through practice questions while he's waiting for his coffee. But his heart's not in it. Tim's been asking why he sticks around for this, and now more than ever it's a good question. He doesn't want to underrate Tim's generosity in letting him have the spare room since the... incident at the college. Just while he looked for his own place. It made sense at first for the three of them to group together while they readjusted to a life that rated as slightly more normal than their last few years, but as weeks turned into months, three became a crowd, and now it's a melee. Brian's always looking at apartments in the area, but every time one detail isn't quite right. Hence him still being here as honoured guest for these merry situations.

Or so he says. In truth, he's as afraid of being alone as either of them.


	2. Counterpoint

_In the gentle light as the morning nears_  
 _You don't say a single word of the last two years_  
 _Where you were when you reached the frontier_  
 _My brother you were born_  
 _And you will try to do what you did before_  
 _Pull the wool over your eyes for a week or more_  
 _Let your family take you back to your original mind_  
\- Fleet Foxes

With just a thought Tim could be lying with Jay's head in the nook of his shoulder, watching him sleep. He's right there now, curled up on _his_ side of the bed. Filling in of sensory blanks moves as naturally as the turning of pages – the warmth of Jay's skin, the soothing rise and fall of their breathing, the way his long lashes might brush the sensitive skin of Tim's throat as he stirs.

His hair has grown almost to chin length and looks in dire need of washing, but at least the only sign of trouble to his sleep – and it makes Tim's heart flutter to see it, even after last night - is his nose twitching when an errant lock falls across his face and tickles him. In pale sunlight and with closed eyes placid he looks softer, younger - _pretty again_.

At a glance he's the same Jay he fell for, slight smile playing at the corners of his lips and everything. The scarring on his abdomen is covered, and the deeper rents in his mind are smoothed over, at least for a little while. But signs of struggle are written on his body like diversions to stop Tim careening off down memory lane where he's no use to anyone. Under the blankets he clutches he's thinner. God knows where he keeps finding weight on him to lose, and a selection of bruises and scrapes adorn his exposed arms. Probably from Brian's intervention, for which he's eternally grateful. Surely Jay wasn't really hurling everything in reach at _him_ , but at his surroundings, something his brain was telling him was there to hurt him, what his life has become; fate, bad luck, life, the universe, everything. And Tim's certain none of it would've happened without the demon drink. However, he's more concerned with consequence than intent when his physical safety is in question, and who knows where it might've gone if Brian hadn't been there?

If the whole ordeal was like watching an exorcism, then at least Jay is sleeping now. He claims drinking makes the nightmares go away, but it doesn't - it only helps him forget. Tim still has to deal with the screaming in the middle of the night, but fortunately for Jay, he hasn't been feeling vindictive enough to say so. There's a lot of things he's never said that he's had ample opportunity for; that Jay is smarter than he thinks he is sometimes, that he cares about other people to a saintly degree, that he's forgiven, that for nine times out of ten his brain tries to guilt him there's nothing to forgive in the first place.

Impulse says to wake him and hold him for half an hour before work. He's so calm there's no _reason_ he couldn't just wake up and they'd smile and offer one another sleepy kisses like before. But perhaps it's kinder to let him stay in his head for now instead of bringing him round to... all this. A small act of mercy and one he'll go unthanked for, but Tim can breathe again for having made a start on all the amends he has to make today.

He makes his way through the rubble and into the music room. Brian's got the guitar and has been playing the same Ramones song repeatedly since Tim came inside to shower, shave, and change. Or maybe it's a few different Ramones songs – it's pretty hard to tell with that band. The volume is perfect for leaving neighbours oblivious while aggravating anyone sharing space with you - it might be deliberate punishment for last night's frolics or it might be an oversight, one common enough when you're lost in music. What's not up for debate is that Brian's vocals make Joey Ramone sound like a one-man grand high opera by comparison.

Tim slept for about five minutes and trying to patch his living situation together looks about as appealing his imminent shift, and neither seem physically possible, either. Brian is unreasonably perky and perched on the arm of the couch in nothing but a towel. This isn't a new habit; back when they'd lived next door to one another, it wasn't at all unusual for Tim to look out of the window in the morning and get an eyeful. A veritable Adonis back then, Brian is a shadow of his former self - he's not wasting away like Jay, but a withered and picked at version of the life and soul of the party Tim knew in another time. But his smile's still there, on that honest and enviably chiselled face that Tim only has to look at to believe there's still a reason to get up in the morning.

He smells like shower gel - fresh, clean - and the aroma of coffee is drifting around the room. It's all too domestic and optimistic for such an ungodly hour in the morning, especially in conjunction with everything that passed to wake them for it. When Brian finally tears his eyes from the fretboard to register Tim's presence, he doesn't say anything, and the silence falls like lead in Tim's stomach. They've had one awkward silence in the whole course of their friendship, and that was in the aftermath of Brian sitting down to watch the entirety of Jay's Youtube footage by way of answer. Then, the way he was feeling was something that coudn't be contained in mere words. Now it's just embarrassment on both sides, the kind that feeds off its own reflection in both parties. He stammers as he starts to speak, like a rusted engine stuttering into life.

"It's your interview today, right?"

A nod. _Shit_. The last thing he needs is Brian turning up somnambulant and botching it on his conscience in addition to everything else.

“The new bar next to the theatre place?”

"Yeah.” He laughs, but with his head downturned. “It can't go worse than it did in my dream, which is a start. I guess."

Tim nods; _go on_.

"Well, I walked in and it was going great, but then suddenly everyone else in the building started yelling at me, calling me a lunatic, and..."

He speaks with a caustic relish, yet there's a smile inviting Tim to be in on it.

"Do remember to get dressed."

"Actually, I was thinking of turning up like this. Maybe I'll get a strategically placed sign saying 'Still single, ladies' and see what that does for my chances."

"You gonna be okay?"

Brian lifts his coffee cup in answer. "I left some for you, if you want it."

"Thanks." Tim pads over to the kitchen. His feet are not entirely obedient and grind some of the detritus further into the carpet just for good measure. Brian's riffing resumes, and maybe it's the only thing keeping him alert. Out of the window the sun is rising, painting the sky in pastel colours and gold trim. Wispy clouds saunter in and out of view, bringing promise of a beautiful day to the cosy view of their neighbours' neat back gardens. A white fence, swings and slide for the kids, a shiny car and near-identical houses beyond it. No other lights are on along the street. Catching the last hour or so of sleep before the working day begins. Absolutely nothing of note.

But in spite of all his effort, it seems just as far away as it did from the window of a cheap motel. _What more do I have to do_? There's no ziggurat of dirty dishes by the sink. He doesn't go to work in the same clothes he woke up in two days straight. Every therapist Tim's ever seen tells him to celebrate his achievements, even if they seem a lot smaller than most people's, and he's trying. Keeping his living space in a state more orderly than that of, say, Dresden circa 1945 is one of them, and he's been trying _so fucking hard_ , and what he's put up with from Jay in the last few weeks just feels like the final straw in the general 'none for you' pattern his life seems to follow. It's pointless and it's petulant but it's cycling through his head anyway; _what more do you want from me_?

On the hi-fi a song's playing, buried just underneath Brian's repetition, and one quite at odds with the uplifting chords he's hammering out. It must be one of the CDs that survived Jay's purge, but he doesn't recognise the track. It's slow, mournful, and slightly shuffling, distorted guitar crackling behind a dirge of a bassline. One of those tunes that seems to drag its feet.

_"You're bad for me like cigarettes_

_But I haven't sucked enough of you yet."_

Says a nasal voice that suggests a sneer on the face of the singer, and Tim doesn't want to know. He sidles over to the hi-fi and hits off, before lighting up defiantly and joining Brian.

The couch sits like an island in front the sea of debris around them. He lifts up the smaller keyboard from where it lies on the seat and turns it over – that the instruments all escaped is something to be grateful for, at least. Switching it on, Tim strikes a jarring set of notes from the deep end, replicating the low piano that syncs with shocks in a horror movie. The discord shakes Brian from his jangling trance and he slides from the arm to the seat beside Tim, towel placement miraculously intact. So they sit for a while, Brian bashing away at strident major chords and Tim replying with low notes at a snail's pace.

He grew up without music - it was 'too stimulating' during his bad episodes, apparently. The ever-growing stacks of CDs dotted around the room can attest to how much he's been making up for lost time, picking up albums with interesting covers in thrift stores and seeing what they give. Often, it's plenty – it's always struck him as odd that people get hung up on this or that genre, while Tim has two classifications for music; whether it makes a connection with him, or whether it doesn't. Somehow it's easier to hear yourself in the words of a song than it is to accept any reassurance from your friends, who don't know what they're talking about. Recognising his own life in the lyrics of a song serves as a reminder that there's another world out there beyond the hole he keeps digging for himself, but one that's still joined to him, however tenuous that may be.

Something to get better for, in other words.

From there it only seemed logical he'd try making music of his own. He spent about a third of his college time swallowed up by it; the process is distractingly physical, but creative enough to make him feel he's done something with the day. There's something exhilarating and almost addictive about beginning with nothing and ending up, through only your own efforts, with a web of sound that comes together to go somewhere and mean something.. But he's not quite into it today. His fingers slip and a melody just isn't making itself happen.

"What are you looking for?"

Tim's twisted himself around to peek out of the window, keeping his head below the windowsill as much as possible. "Seeing if the neighbours are looking in again. Must be wondering what's upset the weird gay crackheads this time."

"I think you've just named our band."

"What?"

"The Weird Gay Crackheads. I think it has a ring to it."

"If you say so."

"And Jay can be our percussionist if he's up for it - we don't even need a kit. If we can just get him to smash your belongings with a little more rhythm for his next meltdown, I think we'd be breaking some completely new sonic ground there."

Tim is smiling, much as he doesn't want to. He gives a little comedic trill on the keyboard. Knowing there's no bad feeling between him and Brian means taking less of a boulder on his back to work with him. "It's been done, I'm afraid."

"Seriously?"

"Some weird German band Al - I, um, heard about," Tim says without thinking, and the room falls quiet, like it always does when the name comes up. If there's a second of relief from the incessant riffing, it's replaced by this black cloud welling up behind his eyes. "Made music out of power tools and scrap metal and stuff."

Brian lifts his eyebrows. "Only in Europe."

Tim's staring at the small patch of clear carpet by his feet. There's no getting around it. If all the japes and smiles are something of an olive branch he hadn't dared expect, he still has to do the rowing himself. "I'm so sorry, Brian."

"Don't apologise to me; apologise to Michael," says Brian, holding up the sleeve for an R.E.M. CD that's probably in a thousand pieces all over the floor. He drops it and transfers the hand to Tim's arm. "You feeling okay about it?"

"I uploaded most of the music to my computer, so..." Tim's put it all on one long playlist; it's been a dream of his for a long time to host a party with the whole thing on shuffle. There's still chance. Maybe when the living room looks like a living room again, and not a hip new modern art installation. Over in the corner lies the remnants of a chintzy porcelain lion Tim picked up one day while he waited for a doctor's appointment. There was an antiques store down the road he used to kick his heels in - the only nearby non-residential building he could find. He'd bought it with his fifth monthly paycheck from the same job, an all-time high which still holds the record. Of course, his delight turned out to be bitterly, bitterly ironic, but the memory still makes him smile. Every so often he still catches the lion in the corner of his eye and remembers he was _doing it_ , once. Now it's in bits on the floor.

Brian snaps him back to the present. "I wasn't talking about the music."

"Yeah. I know. I'm sorry. I don't know what to say to make it up to you."

Brian only sighs. "Tim, did you honestly expect me to be mad at you? You're hardly the perpetrator here. But we've got to talk about it."

"I'd love to tell you it won't happen again, but -"

"You're too right it won't happen again." The words cut right through the tension that barely held up their banter. He's poker-facing in that way he does when the cards are about to be laid. "What do you think would've happened if I hadn't been here last night? How far would it have gone? I didn't want to lecture you, particularly not before you have to go out to work -"

 _But you're going to do it anyway, because you're just so noble like that_. The faux apologies he uses to justify his urge to play chessmaster in other people's dramas can be more grating than the interference itself, and the urge to dismiss all he's saying as more of the same is there, but self-awareness spoils everything.

" -but I'm scared for both of you. What else am I meant to do, Tim?"

Do? Like it's up to him to do anything. _I've been a burden to you for long enough already_. "You could always take that apartment you were looking at uptown."

"You're kidding. No? You won't get rid of me that easily. Especially not now."

"You'd be happier."

Brian's face falls at the suggestion. "And miss out on all this fun?"

" _Seriously_. I mean, it's not that I don't like having you here. As much as I _like_ anything about this. Just don't let that place pass you by on my account. It seemed like a coup. It's only a little more than you're giving me for rent here."

"I could use that money, though."

"You'd probably save it by moving closer to work."

Brian only shrugs.

"Less chance of being woken by domestic violence at five in the morning?"

"That _is_ tempting. But seriously, if you're trying to tell me three's a crowd, I can -"

"No, no, that's not what I'm saying at all. I just can't see what you're getting out of this."

"Is it so hard to believe that I actually enjoy your company at times?"

"I know. And I know we've got to do something. I just don't think I can deal with it right now. Let me get today out of the way with first."

"I can't believe I'm even bothering to ask this, but I don't suppose there's any chance you'd take the day off?"

It's all he can do not to laugh in Brian's face. Brian and his charm can't comprehend what it's like for anyone who doesn't have it, and he's still new to this 'What flimsy excuse am I going to make to explain my periodic disappearances and make myself a more attractive employee during economic downturn today?' game. At times like this he remembers Brian's different - he actually has a contrast, and a well-adjusted lens through which to view all that's been done to them. For all the horror he's endured Brian can also remember what it was like to wake up with unexplained injuries and no clue where he was or why, and see it as the sign of a great night, with nothing worse than a hangover to worry about.

If Jay's early life was closer to normal than his own, it's only by a hair. From what he says he's always been anxious to a degree that he ought to have seen a doctor for, enough to isolate him, even before providence gave him good reason to be scared. Since the three of them moved in Tim's been going back and forth as to what's worse - to be taunted by recollection of better days that can never be replicated, or to have simply never known anything but standing on the outside looking in. Are Brian's happy, carefree memories a comfort, or a small light serving only to make the darkness surrounding him more impenetrable?

He can only conclude that it's kind of like trying to apply moral relativity to the psychological variation of mass murderers; possible, but missing the point.

"Bad idea."

"You haven't _slept_!"

"No!" Tim slams his fist in emphasis, and the refusal would've carried a lot more weight if he'd remembered the keyboard; one of the cheesy pre-programmed beats kicks in, and the fact that it's funny is just fuel on the fire of his anger. He throws it away and steadies himself.  "I've done worse on no sleep. I think I need to be out of here for a while, anyway."

Brian stretches. "Same. Think I can catch a nap on the bus?"

That's about all the subtlety Brian is capable of, but it's working. This guilt is tripping. "I'll clean all this up when I get home, I promise. Have the rest of the day for yourself."

"Jay should clean it up. And then he should get help or get a job or something, because this..." He holds his hand out like the mess on the floor is an expressionist masterpiece that speaks for itself, and Tim's simply too dumb to appreciate it. "You sure about leaving him here alone?"

 _Not even slightly_. "You can't miss your interview."

"I can't see it being more than a couple of hours."

"I'll take his wallet with me, just in case." Jay's brown hoodie came off him some time during their fight and is splayed on the floor, its arms lying at unnatural angles. A brewery reek clings to it when Tim picks it up to go through the pockets. "Nothing in it, anyway."

"If I were you I'd be more worried about what he'll do inside the house. Tim... can you really not see that this is getting ridiculous? I know you think you feel something for -"

"Think?" It's out there before Tim has time to stop his trigger-happy tongue.

"Yes, think."

"If you're saying this because Jay's a man -"

"Damn it, Tim, you know I'm not. Me, of all people."

Tim's seen Brian genuinely angry maybe twice. One time in college when his rent wasn't processed properly and he took the blame; and then on the last day, during the fight. The death stare and the way he spits out his words are so violently out of character Tim can't even look at him, and invents something important to look at in the stack of papers on the counter. Realisation takes longer than it should to click; _Well, you did just call him homophobic, and that's pretty offensive_.

"I haven't said _anything_ about whatever it is the two of you have started up together - I don't know why you thought you couldn't tell me about it, but I didn't press it. I didn't even complain about the noise because you were clearly weren't comfortable. So after last night, can you really blame me for wondering if it's healthy?”

If only he'd kept going. Being vented at gives Tim chance to switch off his verbal fight-or-flight mode, and he's biting his lip because if he opens his mouth he's going to start weeping and there's no two ways about it. He still has the hoodie in his arms, smoothing it and brushing off the dirt. _One, two, three_ , and he swallows a sob. "No. But you're judging it at the wrong time. If you'd been with us before -"

"I've seen you guys before, on those videos. You barely even talked to each other."

Brian has to be serious before he'll acknowledge the one-time existence of that footage. As if he could come up with any rationalisation to apply to their relationship that Tim hasn't already tried to convince himself of a hundred times. That they only started having sex as a distraction, as a way of purging frustration, for simple warmth. To fill a deficit of comfort and intimacy they'd both fallen into over the lonely years, a reassuring nightly routine. A corruption of the strange bond they shared from mutual uncommon experience, confused by sleep deprivation and loneliness. All in conjunction with the lack of another willing and available partner. Likening their... _arrangement_ to married men in prison who had a one-off same-sex affair - he's read about it, happens all the time. For all the road was open, he and Jay had found themselves prisoners nonetheless, ugly slatted blinds in motel windows taking the form of low-budget bars. So he kept telling himself to avoid the truth and all it entailed.

"I love him."

He's never come right out and told anyone before. Not even Jay. _Doesn't it go without saying_? They're only words, and words have never been good to him, even if when coming out with it now he can feel his chest swelling. Just for a second, it's there - a spark of the old thrill of the two of them against the world. Their affair never would've happened if they hadn't been flung together by bad luck and circumstances - that much is true. Jay was just _there_. To begin with, that's all there was to it, and after the first time they woke up naked it was easier to forge an unspoken agreement about throwing awkward conversation to the wind and doing it again. And after enough evenings pushing their beds together it felt like Jay was, well, _there_ , something constant and comforting. Vague attraction turned into affection, and then...

There's identifiable science to sex and attachment. But there's so much that can't be explained by basic brain chemistry - like the way he feels he's floating when he drifts off to sleep with Jay's arms around him. Or the giddy flushes when he catches a straying scent of deodorant or motel-grade shampoo, the chemical cocktail that seems like a fused part of Jay's being. The pride and joy of seeing his gaunt, pale face brighten with a smile because of Tim's words, his touch. He's tried to imagine them holding hands in the park or kissing at a movie or dividing chores between them or whatever it is ordinary people are meant to do in relationships, and it's laughable. But so is trying to picture them doing anything else ordinary people are supposed to do.

And to wave all that away by calling what they shared confusion or a mistake would be a greater betrayal than anything else they've said or done to one another. Brian himself has said often enough that when you truly care for someone you stop noticing perceived physical flaws, and Jay being a man just became a similarly inconsequential detail over time.

Voicing any of this to Brian would take tremendous effort, though, so Tim settles for studying his hands and mumbling. "We talked more off camera. Sometimes."

True, they don't always talk much. But for two people who don't much like talking to begin with, maybe it isn't about that - poetic exchanges and grand declarations. Maybe it's about finding a place together where no words are necessary.

"Are you sure you're really _in love_ with him, though?"

Tim folds Jay's jacket and puts it down on the counter. His palm lingers for a moment, then he's up looking for his keys. Brian in the corner of his eye raises his hands like he's walked too close to a bonfire.

"I know, I know, I'm doing that thing you hate where people think they can tell you they know your own experiences better than you do."

He remembers that, after everything that's been twisted and broken and all-out wiped from their heads. It's hard for Tim to feel mad at him, with that in mind, but as much as he wants to offer some explanation it's just not coming.

"Have you spoken to your parents yet?"

"What part of 'I'm not going to' was too ambiguous for you?" He's not sure what his mother's reaction to news that he'd made home with another man would be.  Given her attitude to his illness, she'd probably want to 'cure' him of that as well.

"Tim... it's only fair."

"It's not as if they were falling over themselves to stay in touch before, is it? You and Jay are my family now. End of story."

"I'm not trying to tell you what to do, just kind of... trying to open your eyes to a perspective you maybe haven't seen yet."

"Are you trying to sell me drugs?"

"Timothy."

"Yeah, I get it. Like I said, we'll talk when I come home."

"You've got enough on your plate right now, I see that. I just think we all need time to, kind of, find out who we are outside of all this. I guess."

"Now you sound like bad student film dialogue."

"And _you_ sound like you're avoiding the question."

"You didn't phrase it as a question." Brian's gaze is unwavering. If he's an immovable object, the force of Tim's deflection is apparently less unstoppable than it seems. "You always choose the worst times to get perceptive."

"Well, one of us has to be. Is it really that hard for you to realise I care about you enough to want to be here for you? That's what friends do, in the real world. Whatever you decide you're doing, I'll support you and I'll do anything I can to help you. Just... do decide something, okay? I won't let you deal with things on your own. Not again. I owe you this much, and if I didn't I'd do it anyway because I love you, alright?"

Brian pulls him in for a hug and he can't remember the last time he felt someone's arms around him in earnest affection, rather than terrified need. If Tim acknowledges what's just been said the welling tears that are threatening to let loose will have at it. Which will mean turning up to work with swollen eyes and blotchy skin... again. So he plugs it with a fist in his mouth and pushes Brian away. "Please put some clothes on before you touch me again."

"Okay," says Brian, and he struts with a sway to his hips across the room, where his best clothes are pressed and folded over the back of a chair. Tim averts his eyes about a second too late as he lets the towel flutter to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sneering song playing in the background is [Dead Radio by Rowland S. Howard](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv_6ZlXP7Gk); weird German power tools band [exists](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nahQhQ4Gy6k) and they are flawless.


	3. Lament

_Dear darkness, dear darkness_  
 _I've been your friend for many years_  
 _Won't you do this for me, dearest darkness_  
 _And cover me from the sun?_  
 _And the words tightening around my throat_  
 _And, and_  
 _Around the throat of the one I love_  
 _Tightening, tightening, tightening_  
\- PJ Harvey

“They said I was lucky."

Jay lies on his back and whispers it to the shadows cast by the closed blind. The shadow replies only with a silence that invites him to fill it with cold words and unwanted imaginings. A circular conversation, but the only one he has strength for.

 _You're lucky_. That's the first thing he heard upon coming round, after they got the bullet out and stitched him up. He's lucky he was hit where he was, that his stomach was merely perforated and not pulped as it by rights should have been, apparently. Then he was lucky to have such caring friends to go back to. Lucky he avoided brain damage from the blood loss. Lucky to not be comatose. Lucky to be alive.

 _If you say so_.

He sits and stretches in some vain attempt to iron out all the aches and itches that have accumulated on him overnight. Pretending to sleep soundly was the best way of getting Tim to leave he could come up with. Looking placid and peaceful was no easy task with shards of glass piercing his head and stomach, and other discomforts too many and varied to catalogue, but if all he's going to do is stand in the doorway... He ought to know by now exactly how Jay feels about being watched.

Only now Tim has gone, the room around Jay is horribly empty and stretches on and on until getting up for the door seems like an impossible feat of inhuman strength. This was supposed to be _their_ room. They're sticking their laundry in the same overflowing basket, but before he falls asleep Jay still finds his head cycling through all the rooms he's called his own for a night to remember what the outside of the building looks like. It doesn't feel like home.

What does 'home' feel like? All the word suggests with surety is a house with trees that tap on his window, a kitten in his lap, his mother tucking him in at night. And after that it was an apartment in which the only colour was the frigid blue glow of his laptop and a rainbow of junk food wrappers - 'home' as something he doesn't care about, because no-one else ever sees it. Something he takes for granted until it's gone.

But whatever a home is meant to feel like, it surely isn't this.The other two are talking, too soft to hear, but at least the pre-dawn guitar practice has stopped with the rising of the sun. He can't escape the feeling of being a kid on the naughty step, eavesdropping for forewarning of a punishment.

More clearly he hears the click of the front door. Tim leaving for work. Now it's a matter of waiting for Brian to piss off so he can muster the strength to get up for a glass of water. His tongue sits like dry rind in his mouth and he can almost taste it, cold with a hint of metal. He's sat in bed and actually salivating over tap water.

Jay's not feeling good on his feet, but with a little effort he kicks off the blankets that have pooled around his waist and pushes off the bed. He's shuffling sideways against the wall to the window - he always likes to have something at his back, even if it's only a cheap motel desk chair. His hand finds the cord for the blind and stays there. Heart pounding, his fingers bail on him every time he tries to pull it up.

He _knows_ there'll be nothing out there but grass and asphalt and the neighbours' houses, a ruddy orange coming from the windows to put him cruelly in mind of open fires and Christmas mornings. But knowing and feeling run in opposite directions on parallel tracks sometimes, and he's already planting suited abominations and psychopaths in masks on the cosy real estate pamphlet view that awaits him.

He's screaming at himself not to look, but the fabric covering the window is sinister in its uninterrupted white - he'll just keep projecting his worst case scenarios onto it until he looks. He crouches so that his eyes are level with the sill. Carefully as he can, stomach knotting from more than last night's liquid content, he pulls the cord.

In letting himself get so shaky and careless, he's gotten it the wrong way round and the fabric descends a couple of centimetres. He straightens the cord and yanks – harder than he knew. The blind shoots up. All the air is torn from his lungs and his hands rise to his open mouth in horror, even though he'll be unseen beneath the sill. Counting to three, he raises his head. With breath lodged in his throat he scans the yard and beyond, eyes flitting hither and thither – every shadow, every shrub, behind every car.

There's nothing out of the ordinary.

If only he'd left it a couple of minutes later. Tim's just now leaving for work. He gets into the car and pulls out of the drive like he does every other day and it hurts Jay more than anything the lingering poisons in his bloodstream are throwing at him. And for a minute he has to swallow and blink, because one day, Tim's not going to come back. Or he comes back and tells Jay it's time to go. _Whatever_. Either way, the result is the same; Tim's going to leave him.

 _I've fucked everything up_. It's rattling round and round in his head, like a mantra. Of course, there's an inevitability to it. Tim is good-looking - which for Jay is a gross understatement - and he's smart and funny, he's turned out to be good at just about everything he's ever put his mind to, and he's not distanced the way he thinks he is. Not anymore. He could probably have his pick of girls and that's something that would've happened eventually, but it's still sad for Jay to think they might've ridden out the illusion a little while longer. Now he's not the only option, what the hell could Tim see in anyone as worn out and broken as he is? Jay wouldn't stick around for this, either.

He's considered leaving himself behind enough times, and the thought is never too far away these days, but Jay is a coward and never acts on it. Knowing the option there is a weird kind of comfort, though. If life doesn't have the reset button he wants, at least it has an off switch when all else fails. It's reassuring to know he could hit that instead of sitting here running out of battery.

Raindrops are still running over the glass, even as its remainder sparkles in the rising sun. Behind the glass his view is distorted, distant. _Lucky_. A ghost of himself is reflected in the window, and he looks at what's left of his life, and laughs.

When he looks back on last night it's just a watercolour blur of motion and he hears his own voice shouting, but it's as though he's underwater and can't quite make it out. The most vivid recollection he has is of the skirting board digging into his back until it hurt, but lacking stamina for the fight against gravity it would take to move. Events are lost to time, but he remembers, as much as his own recollections can ever be trusted, how it felt - white-hot rage, and desperate grappling for a thought just out of reach.

Thinking about it makes his stomach roil and the tide of blood throbbing in his head takes on tsunami proportion, blinding him. Supposedly he's going to feel better sooner if he gets up and does something, but what? He could go into the living room and clean up and wait for Tim to come home so he can apologise. He _could_ , but it's more overwhelming the more he thinks about it, and he moves to lie down before his legs give way beneath him. Breathing in and out and continuing to exist is taking up every scrap of energy he's got.

A door shuts with a bang somewhere, and for a second he's running through the abandoned hospital. It's powerful enough to take him to his knees, light-headed, like he's been huffing the aerosol that anoints the phantasmagoria of the rotting walls. Sparks fly before and behind his eyes. Nausea rises like oil in water, pressing the air from his lungs, or is it the chase?

It's gone almost as soon as it comes, leaving only shortness of breath and a white empty room. His very worst memories like to arrive uninvited, whatever he's doing. All it takes is the sound of a branch on a window or a shuffle of feet from next door and Jay thinks he's back running for his life. He doesn't know what he's running from, but he knows what it is that floors him; the intensity of the sensation of caring whether he lives or dies.

His Youtube channel's in the ether now – it was the first thing to go once they put the college behind them, and after Brian had seen everything there was to see. The cameras turned into rent money – at Tim's behest, which he wasn't in a position to refuse. But he doesn't need the footage. He sees it all the time. One entry or another plays in his head most days, and it's memory of the fim footage rather than the events first-hand, his life playing out in experimental disjointed sequence. It's like trying on all the selves he's worn across the years and finding none of them fit anymore. He's seen too much, felt too much. The hurt is in the small things. The slightest changes he could've made, the chances he missed by seconds to ruin less lives.

Yet out of all the footage he found, all the horrors he put up there for the world to see, it might be the footage from scenic Tim's apartment that rends him the most. _Fifty-something, wasn't it_? He's reminded of it now by the rain. Strange that the bare walls and floors of Tim's old place look so much more welcoming than this one, even after all the effort he went to with rugs and ornaments and everything normal people have. Alex is there playing with a keyboard, and it's as much as Jay can bear to think about Alex. They're all there, they're all laughing, so young and unlined and unbroken. And they're _right there_. Why can't he just step into the film and join them again?  He can remember the evening in question too, running through the rain with numb hands anchored in pockets, and for what? What did he do with his nights back then? Waste time on the internet, probably. So many videos of skateboarders injuring themselves, so little time.

Not that his life was perfect or anything. Not by any means. He'd spent more time than he cared to calculate sat alone in his apartment, doing nothing, unable to escape the sense of time simply slipping through his fingers as his next decade came rushing forward to meet him. He'd still felt awkward and largely superfluous on set - and most other places. But he was _happy_ in a distant time before any incidental background sound amplified itself into a four minute warning.

Brian says he can't keep looking to the past, but his mind has nowhere else to go, and what does Brian know? He shouldn't even be here. He's been trying to make Jay split from Tim this whole time, and he won't stop now. Maybe he's still goading them into antagonising in each other in ways Jay hasn't even picked up on. He says he doesn't remember why he did what he did, that it wasn't really him, but he's always watching. Without the hood and after Jay's seen him manage to injure himself with a wooden spoon their unfortunate third wheel is rather less intimidating, but it was supposed to be just the two of them.

Jay looks at himself then and now and during the chaos in between and he really is stuck in a loop of unhappiness. He's managed to take himself to a point where waking up and worrying about anxiety becomes an incitement to anxiety in the first place. It's got to be some kind of perverse talent to fuck up one's own subconscious quite so wholly. A little eruption of laughter catches him off guard even though it's not funny, it's horrifying, yet all he can do is cackle to himself. He shoves a fist in his mouth so Brian won't hear, but he can't stop, even when it's tearing the muscles of his torso. All the while a slideshow is playing; everything that's happened to take it away from him. Brian struggling to deliver his dialogue with a straight face; Brian's seemingly lifeless body being dragged through a burned-out building; Brian pinning him to the ground after a night out to stop him inflicting bodily harm on the supposed love of his life.

The self he inhabited before this one was better, and it's not just that the grass is looking greener the further he goes. There was waking up next to Tim every day. And even before that, he had his movie guy routine, typing up his title, that jubilant moment of _Yes, I_ am _using my degree for something_. Even all the nights he sat shouting “ _What does it want me to do_?” at his editing programme when it crashed, like it was a physical manifestation of everything else that was wrong with his life. His single-serving neighbours through the years must have loved him, but at least he never had to see them again. Now it's just scattershot thoughts of the past coming back to haunt him, and the thickly woven veil in front of him that covers The Future. He always thinks of it in capitals. People talk about it like it's an event that announces itself, but it never arrives. The present ghosts around you until you're closer to thirty than twenty and your former future lies in fragments on the floor.

It's somewhat true that there's no respite to be found in memory. There _is_ an addictive quality to reminiscence, like he's substituted it for booze, drugs - the usual distractive vices that he'd forsaken for fear of getting careless, at least until recently, now he's out of harm's way. But as with anything else, the narcotic rush found in a hit of mainlined nostalgia comes with a crash. Every happy memory triggers at least five contrasting ones, so he can't even allow himself the indulgence of getting lost in pleasant recollection. His head is a hall of mirrors. Photos of tree house afternoons with a childhood friend, dog-eared from years of thumbing, laid out at his funeral.

Lying stiff and staring at the door, he's drifting again. This time he's treated to a reminder of his first time in a hostel room away from home. He hadn't worked out that the ladder slung over the back of the wardrobe at the foot of the bed could detach and hang over the side instead, allowing easy access. The classmates he was sharing with hadn't seen fit to point it out to him either, preferring to watch him slither on his stomach over the top of the conquered height, through the narrow space between wardrobe and ceiling and into the top bunk.

 _Where did that one come from_ ? Old conversations and friendships long ago flash up in front of his eyes sometimes, unwanted and unbidden, but the bunkbed story was a random one. Reminiscence of but one entry in a long and varied history of making things unnecessarily complicated for himself, perhaps.

What they went through... it's not character-building. It's not a cloud with a silver lining or the darkness before the dawn or any of those other platitudes people spout when they're tired of listening to you. It just hurts. It hurts and it's like a wrecking ball and a fucking ton of TNT to your damn character. What doesn't kill you can still break you to your very foundations, and how can you be stronger after that? All it is, is a bunch of bad decisions that never had to be made, and if Jay is going to spend the rest of his life in pain because of them, couldn't he at least _have that pain_? Rather than having to fake smiles and sunny optimism for the benefit of everyone but himself.

There's a knock at the door and he jumps out of his skin, backing into the window like it's going to shield him.

“Jay?” It's Brian. Of course it is. “You okay in there?”

What a question _. Yeah. I'm just fine._ He presses his lips together in a vow of silence, even if Brian can't see.

“I... I've moved the bookcase so you can open the door. When you're ready.”

 _What?_ The room is spinning around him. On his back and off balance he's swallowing to keep down bile and it occupies all of his throat, too much to reply. There's a flash - just a flash - where he wants to. At first he just wants to object to being shut in here like an animal, a kid past bedtime. But, even though it's Brian, there's something in him yelling to be heard and listened to even if it's awkward or just an insult-slanging match. The hard lump that blocks his throat is stronger, and any words that suggested themselves fall away into the recess of headache and impatience his brain in brewing.

 _I should be embarrassed_. He says it to himself a few times and it's only then he realises quite how much he isn't. Brian's seen him bawling on the floor in next to no clothing, screaming obscenities and smashing up the living room. There should be some kind of shame about it all, probably, but caring takes up effort he's too busy expending on staying in one place. In light of that he can't help but wonder what exactly Brian hopes to gain from being kind to anyone so disgusting as he is. He's got to be stood behind the door with that look of pity on his stupid baffled face. Pity's no use to anyone. Jay tried it for a while and did nothing but make everything worse.

"Jay? There's coffee, if you want it?"

 _Don't you get the message at all_? There's a pressure to answer in the affirmative, like it's the only way to sue for peace and be left alone. Jay sighs, a little louder than he meant. This was meant to be _their_ living space, and to have it invaded like this stirs up anxieties he'd been promised would end with... the college incident.

"I've got to go now. You want me to bring you anything back?"

There's a silence, then a "Have it your way" from the corridor that Jay assumes he wasn't meant to hear. His ears follow the footsteps through the house and out of the door. The place is his, for a little while. Another drink would get him back to sleep to rest up so he could say sorry to Tim later, but he knows that's not going to happen. It was Brian's idea that he go out, have a couple of drinks, try to let go and loosen up - but by the look of things he can't even get that right. Exactly when and how it went from a few beers for fun to knocking back spirits that stung the splits in the skin of his lips has proved a long incline passing too slowly to notice. Whatever he tries, it never works. Loneliness is only augmented with other people around him in a bar, carefree and laughing at a joke he's not in on. If he can match most of them drink for drink now, it hasn't been the cure to his tied tongue and tense shoulders he was hoping for.

This party lifestyle he so envied once upon a time is really less to do with thrill-seeking, and more a weird kind of unimaginative apathy. So he staggered home with a stranger just to see what happened; non-event. The noise of everyone talking at the same time just switched for the same silence as an empty room, but it was all too close, and then he found himself standing outside topless with no idea where he was. Somewhere inside him is the fragment that still cares about his well-being, wagging his finger and frowning, now more than ever after yesterday. At an objective level he is well aware that taking mysterious white powder from a stranger is a bad idea even by his recent lofty standards. From what he remembers it only burned the back of his throat, and it kept burning the whole time until he was back here, and it had to come out somehow, and Tim must have been caught in the firing line.

It's all too zig-zagged to piece together. Jay looks at the clock, then looks again – he has to blink a few times to be sure he's registered the information the digital readout is trying to tell him. He's lost almost an hour to swimming in memory. But he's got to look for answers there, else how will he learn from his mistakes and move forward? Even when trying to remember seems as fruitless as putting a broken mirror back together; there's still cracks, parts that are stuck in delicately and threatening to fall out. At least Brian's gone now. He could get up and grab something to eat - when was the last time he ate? One day tends to blur into another, and just the thought of stretching his stomach for food makes him feel sick. Really sick, until he's swallowing vodka fumes that scorch almost as badly on the way up.

 _Just do it and make the feeling go away_.

The bathroom is two steps away across the hall but it could be miles in the time it takes for him to realise it's not a choice anymore. Jay's vision is gone again in the fight to keep his insides inside. He ploughs through two doors with one arm shielding his eyes from the brighter light, takes a leap of faith and hopes, prays, he's landed to kneel before the toilet, and his stomach gives out on him, his throat is aflame and the porcelain is cold on his bony hands as he hugs it in victory, and is that what it feels like to have faith in something?

He stays on his knees once he's done retching and spitting the last spirit-laced strings out. It's all he can do to pull the handle. If Jay felt like he'd been shredded and pulped already, he's taken exhaustion to new and debilitating levels. There's literally nothing left in him. A hot flush swells to his face and all in all cold water is looking pretty good right now. Once he's breathing again, he pulls himself up on the basin and splashes his face.

Jay catches himself in the mirror on the wall cabinet and looks immediately away like he's seen something decomposing. It's no wonder Tim doesn't want to touch him anymore. Not that Jay was ever model material or anything, but he's beginning to look, aptly, like something out of a horror movie. In another life he'd been branded 'cute' a few times, but in a 'I just want to pet your head and wrap you in blankets' kind of way, not a 'take me now' kind of way. Now he can't even say that much. His chest and cheeks have been hollowed out by the bundle of nerves he's become. Dark circles have taken up permanent residence under his eyes; fine details of his bone structure and pulsing blue veins show beneath dry, pallid skin, lightly lacerated and daubed with bruises. A _picture_ of ill health. _Exhibit A: Jay Last-Name-Redacted - 'The Walking Dead', sleep deprivation and malnourishment on human canvas, 2009-2014._ Inspired by too many rented rooms and too much borrowed time.

A quick rummage through the handful of bottles in the cabinet turns up nothing useful - nothing that would take the pain away or help him sleep. Maybe there's other options, though it's unlikely now Tim and Brian are so convinced he's drinking too much. The mere mention of the word 'vodka' would make his stomach turn again right now, but if he could just get hold of a couple of beers to take the edge off his illness and relax enough to go to sleep, he'd probably be fine. He doesn't know where the store is or feel even slightly well enough to get there, but he's on his feet and out looking for his wallet anyway.

A clear path cuts through the living room and Jay keeps his eyes on it, guidance through a minefield. His jacket sits on the kitchen counter, folded. He throws it to the ground upon discovering there's nothing in the pockets - Tim must've taken it. But of course it's actually Tim's money, and he was going to try to be more grateful and happy, so he can't let himself get mad. _Brian_ , is the next thought, but he has his own money, too. In truth Jay's an idiot and left ample opportunity for anyone to take it while he was out last night. The day stretches ahead of him, barren without the usual landmarks of meals and meetings and TV he doesn't want to miss, and the light streaming in the window is a knife burrowing and twisting deep in his head.

The mess he made of the living room has been in the corner of his failed attempt at a blind eye this whole time, looming like a bird of prey. He sighs. It's only right that he clean it up. It'd be a good way of apologising to Tim and proving that, _yes_ , he can get through a day sober, quite easily. Then there's nothing to stop him sorting out some laundry. He scans the floor - it shouldn't take too long, not really. Just a matter of gathering up all the sharp edges, then vacuuming anything smaller. _We have a vacuum, right_?

There's a paper on the table, open at the job advertisements. Time is running away from him and it's truly past the hour he started making calls, and while the thought of interacting with people all the time makes his knees buckle, it's got to happen sooner or later. He's about to start looking when he remembers he still doesn't have a resume to speak of. Not that it would take very long to type up, and his laptop's right there - only he'd have to come up with reasons to explain his absence from any kind of society over the last four years. And get a bank account for his wages to actually go into. Which won't be easy with all his identification misplaced over the years. How do you even go about replacing that? Come to think, he doesn't have health insurance, he's not registered to vote. So that's just more phone calls he's not really equipped for, some forms he doesn't understand well enough to fill in; he'd rather run from that world altogether, blowing a kiss to Kafka on the way out.

And there's the small matter of his family, of finding out if he's been declared missing or not. More red tape. Announcing himself, would that mean getting the police involved? _No_. There's stuff about credit cards that even Tim doesn't know the extent of...

Jay sighs, and goes back to bed.


	4. Prelude

_I heard me a music that drew me to dancing_  
 _Lo, I turned, under his spell_  
 _I opened my coat but he never came closer_  
 _I bolted the door and I whispered 'Oh, well'_  
 _With a strange way of walking and a strange way of breathing_  
 _More lives than a cat that led me astray_  
 _All in all he captured my heart_  
 _Dead to the world, and I just slipped away_  
\- Patti Smith

_Then he's sat with Alex at some party. They're talking, slumped on a couch that offers sanctuary from the flurry of student activity whirling past them – cans of beer thrown from the left, copulating couples stumbling to the right, games of Twister twisting every which way. Jay's neck has turned itself to an unnatural angle as he leans in to listen, but he entertains one thought of moving and realises his limbs are useless. Alex has his feet stuck up on the coffee table and a bowl of chips in his lap. He picks at them lazily between sips of beer and smirks about Jay's supposed fascination with the new guy. Brian's friend, with the good hair._

_"Just think he's interesting," Jay slurs, or those approximate syllables, vague enough to provoke no further questioning if he's lucky. Alex is looking into the middle distance like he's half-listening at best; possibly planning his dialogue, or maybe listening to the song in the background so he can play 'Let's make Jay shout something embarrassing out of context when there's a gap in the music' again._

_Tim, though. He_ is _interesting, has been right from the beginning. He doesn't say much apart from his lines, at least not to Jay, but then Jay's attempts at conversation rarely inspire anyone else to be forthcoming. There's something about two awkward people trying to make small talk - they sense it and repel one another as if they're like ends of a magnet. So Jay keeps piecing things together from a distance. This guy who is clearly smart and much better-looking than he is, with the good hair and everything - why is it he seems so uncomfortable around people?_

_It's quite the mystery, so Jay's asked questions of Alex and Brian every so often. Nothing_ weird _. Just what he's studying, where he comes from, stuff like that. Ask him yourself, they said, but every time he wants to try there's been something off-puttingly distant in Tim's expression that made him shrink back, like he'd come perilously close to a half-eroded precipice._

_Alex just smiles smugly. "Admit it - you're feeling confused. He's just that good-looking."_

_Jay has a clever comeback on the tip of his tongue, he really does. But then Brian lands between them, vaulting over the back of the couch with all the grace and poise of a Jack-in-the-box on steroids, rousing Alex from his halfway beer coma and causing a chip fountain that their forgotten hosts will have a whale of a time clearing up in the morning. He's always watching. He's been listening to their whole exchange, sneaking around them unnoticed in that downright unnerving way he has, just to make some terrible innuendo about sticking it in Tim's loop of unhappiness._

_After that Alex got all defensive about his dialogue being debased in such a way, and the rest of the evening is obliterated by alcohol. Next time they're on set Jay is sat on a bench with a broken back just out of hearing range while the others go through a scene. The wood's damp, and the last dregs of the morning's rain keep dripping on his head like insistent tapping fingers. Alex says it would be easier not to film his own feet all the time if he wasn't looking at the ground while he should be making eye contact with whoever's on film. But that's a full-scale_ feat _to him. At least with both a hat and a camera to obscure his face, no-one can tell how uncomfortable he looks. Or, indeed, when he's struggling not to laugh out loud at Alex's dialogue. The latter is an advantage not afforded the actors, who he always catches exchanging incredulous expressions between takes. From back here it's like the camera is giving him a two-way mirror on the action._

_It's Tim who holds his attention most - and_ not _for the oh-so-hilarious reasons Alex and Brian were trying to imply. Yes, he flushes and stammers and feels butterfies in his stomach whenever Tim walks by, and it's because he's nervous around pretty much everyone who isn't Alex or family, not because he has a crush. If anything it's jealousy, Tim's good looks and good hair and easier presence on camera. It has to be. That and the fact that the only recogniseable emotion he's ever seen from Tim is vague amusement at Alex's dialogue._

_In his new role as script supervisor Jay hoped he'd be able to work on it, make it sound like an actual conversation rather than an uninterrupted flow of Alex's pretention. Jay knows, even if he'll never say, that his writing is better; in fact, it's astonishingly good for someone who has as much trouble holding a simple conversation as he does. It's just easier when he's in control of everything and not having to guess the other person's reaction. He's got the skill, maybe, but Alex has the confidence, that way of brushing off compliments, and Jay can just see him taking credit for all the best lines that weren't his. Yet everyone else seems really glad to be there. Maybe it's a good script and he's once again too dim to understand it._

_They're all gathered around Alex on the climbing frame. Jay was too nervous about dropping his camera to go and join them, and something else held him back, some idea he'd only feel more lonely with the others around him. Brian says something he doesn't hear, but he does hear the laughter as everyone turns to look at him. Like he's really a star._

_Except Tim. He's got that faraway look again, sitting on the lower bars with dark eyes darting around like he's searching for an exit. He stays there when shooting resumes, and Jay watches him run through his lines to beration from Alex he counters with nothing but a blank deadpan. Then he's found the gap between the cap and the camera to meet Jay's eyes. His face is visibly contorted in the effort not to smirk at whatever he's just been made to say. Just like Jay's. He turns away quick as a whip and tries to guess whereabouts in the script they're up to._ I _think_ they're done with the 'loop of unhappiness' scene now... _but the rest isn't much better. It must be the part with Alex and Brian having what the former imagines is a deep, philosophical discussion on top of the climbing frame._

_Now Tim's coming over._ He's looking at me _. Jay drops the camera and, through some miracle he's no idea what he's done to deserve, catches it in midair._

_"Nice reflexes."_

“ _That wouldn't usually happen.” Jay sits staring at the camera in awe, like it's just fallen out of the sky into his hands. "It's more like my luck to drop it on your foot and break it. The camera, I mean. Not your foot."_ Shut _up_ , Jay.

_Tim laughs, and that feels like a minor achievement to take home for the day. He's still looking toward the ground and shuffling from one battered sneakered foot to the other._ Great. _Tim has just wandered over here expecting Jay to make all the conversation. So he tries to think of something to say, and it's taking long enough that he's chewing his lip and it's probably past the point where it would be considered normal to speak more, so he goes with the first thing he thinks of._

_"So... how are you finding it?"_

_"Hmm?" Tim's lighting up now and looking away._

_"The shoot. The, uh, group. Of us."_

_Tim gives a half-shrug. “Everyone seems really excited about it. When the director doesn't bring his attitude, at least. Was he always like this?”_

“ _Alex? Um... like what?”_

_"We've done ten takes because he keeps saying it doesn't flow like a conversation. Which is what's going to happen when your script is a collection of things no human being would ever say to another. No matter what I do with my timing." He pauses to take a drag on his cigarette, like he's preparing for something. "He said you'd done some work on it as well?"_

_Jay nods. "Script supervisor."_

_"What exactly does a script supervisor do? And don't say 'supervise the script'."_

_Jay's a little taken aback that he was beaten to that well-worn retort. "I, um, just give a second opinion, really. Bounce ideas back and forth." Jay's mouth and throat have gone dry, and he takes a sip of soda to ease the pressure of saying more._

_"You don't just, sort of, look at it in horror?"_

_Maybe Alex has something in his accusation that Tim's timing is off; Jay's now faced with a choice between drowning on his mouthful of soda and spraying it everywhere like a sprinkler._

_"You okay?"_

_Jay nods, smiling. "Just caught me off guard." And he wants to reply with 'Are_ you _okay?' because Tim all too often seems like he isn't. His eyes are permanently circled in shades of sleep deprivation and Jay's lost count of the number of times they've had to stop a take because he's fallen on the ground in a coughing fit. On thw worst days it's almost like he wears the loud T-shirts to compensate for the lack of colour on his face. Then there's times you'd swear he's gone away behind his eyes, when he misses cues and doesn't notice anyone talking to him until Brian punches his arm. Usually he only talks to Brian, and they're an odd pair to say the least; light and dark. And Jay should say something about it, but he's a coward who never knows what to say, and he doesn't want to pry._

_"Whose idea was equating love and four balls on the edge of a cliff?"_

That's about a minute of conversation you've had going on here. Don't fuck this up. _But it's a relief to have it acknowledged that the script isn't particularly good, and it's not some failing on the part of his skills as an interpreter._

_"When I'm 'supervising', I don't know. It's like when you look at a room that's so untidy you don't even know where to start with it.” Jay cuts himself off, because Tim probably doesn't have a clue what that's like because he bothers to clean regularly like normal people. “I mean, where do you go from four balls on the edge of a cliff?"_

_"Pushing Alex off the climbing frame?"_

_"I think we've all been tempted once or twice."_

_"Seriously, though. You know Brian wants to act eventually, right? Way to kill his career before it starts. Can't you think of any kind of alternative?"_

_"Well, I..."_

_"Well, what would you say if you had to console Brian's character?"_

_It's hard to know what to do with Brian's not-much-of-a-character. Jay also thinks Brian's acting so far is the equal of the script, though it seems it's best to keep that one to himself. "I wouldn't really know. I don't have much to say."_

_Tim nods, and Jay wonders if he ought to take offence, but there's a frown of consideration that gives him pause. "You listen, though." And Tim smiles._

_Jay isn't sure how to respond to that. Tim's called away by Alex and it's a relief to lose the burden of saying something, but there's a sad air of missed opportunity. He waits on the bench until clouds roll in and Alex calls off the rest of the shoot - the lighting's ruined. They're all heading off to get something to eat, Tim walking next to Sarah inciting a pang in his stomach he doesn't quite understand, and Jay's not invited. Or at least no-one says he is, so he takes it as leave to walk home in the rain._

_And years later, with lines and bruises and deeper invisible scars to show for it, Jay wakes to a roiling in his head every bit the equal of the previous night's thunder. The latter seems to have dissipated with dawn. Still in the early hours, judging by the beads of dew that glisten on the grass outside the window. It's not a window overlooking a view he remembers, and this building is new to him too. There's enough dust in the air to start settling in his throat, dancing before his face as he coughs._

_His camera's sitting in front of him, atop some broken planks of wood, still recording. So that's something._

_Scratched and stiff, he stumbles outside, slipping and turning his ankle over the bed of broken boards and tarpaulin on the floor. The sight of trees and grass banks is familiar enough, but uniform to a disorienting degree. He could be anywhere, but most likely it's still Rosswood Park. He hasn't explored all of it yet._

_Tim is on his knees not far away. At least, he hopes it's Tim. He's still wearing the tan jacket, there's no mask, and he's not moving but to shiver and curl in on himself. He's practically clawing at his face and trembling head to toe. Jay should do something to comfort him, but what? Like his presence isn't only going to make things worse. He keeps advancing, one foot in front of the other, hoping for an easy answer within the next five seconds. Then Tim turns as a snapping twig betrays him._

_"What are you doing here?" He spits it out as an accusation, tensing as if to spring._

_Jay moves the camera away before he moves his eyes, getting a better look in case the exterior of the shack has something to tell him But there's nothing, just shrubs and grime._

_"I don't know. I just woke up in there."_

_"Where are we?" Tim gets to his feet shakily, dusting himself of dry leaves and padding around the clearing on unsteady feet._

_Jay looks up, like the sky's going to help him out, but seeing the treetops stretching up only makes his head spin. "I think we're still in Rosswood. But not a part that I've ever been in."_

_Tim has found his feet but carries the same open-mouthed wild gaze, sweeping around the hut for anything Jay might have missed – or might have neglected to tell him, he's probably thinking. When nothing presents itself, his body language understandably switches to 'getting the fuck out', and he crashes off through the widest gap in the patches of trees surrounding them._

_"Wait!"_

_Jay runs after Tim at a trot. He bursts out of the woods and finds Tim standing in the middle of a trail, bent over._ _He looks, well, like he's been dragged through a hedge backwards. Which could've quite easily happened in the span of time neither of them remember._

_"My camera was just in front of me.... when I woke up," says Jay, fighting for breath and for some kind of justification. As if he wouldn't have been filming it all anyway._

_"Is it still working?"_

_"Yeah, but, battery's almost de -"_

_The red light flickers mid-sentence, and the screen fades. "Oh."_

_For the first time since he woke, Tim's looking at him. He's visibly straining to avoid it but his mouth is turning up at the corners. They're smiling together. It's there for a second, then he's off along the trail._

_"Is this the way to the parking lot?"_

_"I don't know."_

_Jay flounders for a second, and follows anyway. Without the camera, a second pair of eyes is the next-best thing. He has to move at a trot to keep up with Tim; dry vegetation lifts around his feet, and for a second he's six years old again, kicking up fallen leaves in the street outside his childhood home. The years fall back into place as he scans every corner, every shadow, every movement on the branches around him in the wind._

_In between his eyes rest on Tim ahead of him, and he drifts to thinking of the knowledge he took without permission. His head keeps repeating Tim W. and turning it into Tim Double-You, and he'd laugh at the pun he couldn't invent in better circumstances. At least he's sure, now more than ever, that there's two of them and what happens in the mask stays in the mask as far as Tim's concerned. He truly doesn't remember, doesn't know, doesn't have any control to exert, and if Jay can keep up with him now then maybe it's a start to building some bridges. Flapping by his sides his hands feel clumsy and restless without a camera and he's winded from trying to match Tim's determined strides._

_"I really was going to tell you. About all this." He_ was _. If Tim had bought Jay's flimsy film student story, what would happen if Alex came back to finish the job? He's caused too much pain and loss already - Jessica, Tim's stab at happiness. Tim had been looking well. Clean-shaven, well-rested, some colour on his face - signs of health and happiness suddenly noticeable in their absence. Jay feels guilt descend on him like an old, familiar blanket, but he keeps repeating it;_ I was going to tell you _. Tim was involved, the fact that it happened against his will notwithstanding, and he had to be warned. Even if it had meant sacrificing his assistance Jay would've done it. Even though he knows too well that there are some things you're better off not knowing._

_"I know. I saw the Twitter. Can we just not talk - ?"_

_"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. I didn't know how else to approach you and I - well, I guess I'm not such a great communicator..."_

_"Oh, really? I never could have guessed from the way you've been not dropping the subject after I've asked you to."_

_At least they're speaking. It's the most they've exchanged without anger or Jay's every word being a lie since that one day in the park, all those years ago. He's never forgotten it. There's the same little breeze and the same sweet, thick smell of damp wood. And if Tim just said he's been looking at the Twitter page..._

_"Hey, Tim!"_

_He stops in his tracks sighs like the weight of the world is behind him and clamouring for a piggy-back out of here. "What?"_

_"Love is like four balls on the edge of a cliff."_

_"... Excuse me?"_

He doesn't remember _. Jay's heart sinks, like for a minute he really thought he was living a contrived script with one magical phrase to make everything okay. It figures that he wouldn't remember, though. Tim's probably had lots of friends since they last parted ways. Suddenly, the glade they're in feels very empty, to think that one conversation - that he's used time and time again to convince himself that he's a human being capable of everyday interaction, and later, that Tim is too - could end up essentially one-sided, lost to the wind._

_"Doesn't matter."_

_Jay's treading water with jangling nerves - the punch, the rustling mystery of the woods around them, everything. Under it he's glad not to be alone, even if he's aware of the thin ice he's walking with Tim. His left eye still feels tender. He'd gone out with all the best intentions but it's never been his intentions at fault, which is a shame, when he's only judged upon unfair consequence._

_It's not going to be easy. But at least it's out in the open; at least he's granted Tim a measure of choice that he never really had. It's got to be better than trying to invent a reason for Tim's character in the film to be in the maintainance tunnel - Jay in days gone by had congratulated himself in lacking Alex's aptitude for contrived writing, but hey, there's one instance it might have come in useful._

_Waking up like this with him and struggling to find something to say is a situation he can only liken to the morning after a one-night stand, and the thought sends a rush of blood straight to his soon-to-be-tomato cheeks. He's never been quite sure what to feel about Tim. He knows all too well the fear and intimidation his masked persona inspires, and with every move his body uncovers a new inexplicable scratch or scrape to act as validation. But_ Tim, _then and now... it's hard and awkward to say. Jay still gets butterflies in his stomach when they speak. The anxiety has been amplified with all the lies. And not even_ good _lies. "It wasn't like I was waiting outside for you or anything" - for Christ's sake. He couldn't have been less convincing if he'd gone all out and walked up with 'TIM' written on a piece of cardboard around his neck and a pink carnation in his pocket. But things have changed since they started meeting up. Jay shaves and cleans his hair every day, tries to decide which of the near-identical dirty T-shirts he owns suits him best, like a teenager on a date._

_He wonders if he's just latching onto whatever comes by that feels like a normal thing to worry about. Not that he'd ever actually try a romantic entanglement again, especially with the risk of anyone else become embroiled in whatever's happening to him here. But he's looking at Tim and wondering what it might be like to smooth his ruffled hair, feel strong arms around him, in the way he's always possibly maybe kind of wanted and tried to deny. There's been too many nights he's spent in damp hotel rooms with his hands down his pants in a desperate bid to feel human in the loneliest but most easily available way he knows, staring at one ceiling after another, and Tim's face starts to appear and he imagines... well. He doesn't even have the energy for that anymore. To be capable of feeling attraction at all is a surprise to him, but when he imagines undressing in front of someone and leaving himself so vulnerable, the flicker of desire shrinks back into itself._

_Something else stays to bring a blush to his face, though. When he looks at Tim Double-You, walking with this defiant march in the face of everything around them and everything he's been put through, he's filled with a kind of... awe? That's bravery right there, and if Tim is cold and distant and sharp of tongue, well, he was made that way._

_They're looking at each other. And, before Jay knows it, he's done it again. Found the gap between the cap and the camera._

_"A documentary on hotels? Really?"_

What were we talking about before? _Oh yes, Jay's poor communication skills. Once he catches on, they laugh together again, the briefest of chuckles, but shared. It's not much, and Tim's surly enough when he refuses a ride home, but it's more than Jay had a day ago._ Wouldn't be the first time _, he says when he turns to walk however far he has to go. Watching him close on the horizon like a bruised and battle-scarred hero, all Jay can think of is how many times he's had to walk untold miles after coming to somewhere he doesn't recognise._

He deserves better. _Should 'better' translate as never seeing Jay again and running back to what semblance of a normal life he can scrape together... so be it. The ball's in his court. Jay's already staring at his phone like he's about to interrogate it, but it's more than he had yesterday, and he's learned to be grateful._


	5. Fugue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! I'd like to preface this update with a quick note of thanks to everyone who's read, responded, and shared this story on Tumblr; I couldn't have dared hope for that. I've had some truly horrendous personal experiences in the last couple of years, many of which have been vented into this fic, which I write as both a vehicle for purging the worst days of my life and a celebration of all the little things that make the battle worth it. The day I marathoned everything from Introduction to Entry #73 stands as one of few bright spots in a dark time for me, so it's great to feel like I'm giving something back, and to know that other people can take something from a work so intensely personal is pretty overwhelming. The last few months have turned things around spectacularly, and some of the lovely comments people have made regarding this story come as the best kind of cherry on top. Thank you so, so much.

_All I ever wanted was to pick apart the day_  
 _And put the pieces back together my way_  
\- Aesop Rock

_No_ , Brian sees himself saying in reply to the old lady sat next to him, _I_ don't _know what it's like trying to get a job in this economy_. In reality he nods and gazes off to find something interesting to look at out of the window in this suburban sprawl of well-kept lawns and anonymous whitewash walls. They're the only two on the bus not ensconced within the solitary confinement of modern technology, and there's nothing like trying to smile at someone who sits in safe ignorance as to how phenomenally insensitive the things they're saying are.

How could he possibly know anything about 'this economy'? The more he hears talk about it, the more it seems like one of those stock phrases people throw around when they can't think of anything else to say. He spent one afternoon with a laptop and a newspaper attempting to figure out precisely what the problem with this economy is when he grew tired of failing to squeeze conversation out of Jay, but it's all just strings of numbers meaning no more to him than those video responses he made - kind of.

There's a bump in the road powerful enough to throw Brian back to himself. The past is in the past and it can't touch him here. He says it again and again until the words lose meaning and drown out the babble around him. The bus is an oven and every time he thinks of an answer for the questions he's running through there's an interruption from the right; what does he want to do with himself, how long has he lived here, aren't they all so rude with their headphones and touchscreens? _"What's the skill you're most proud of, Brian?" Patience, right now_. A long time ago he relished hearing people's stories, he'd have wanted to know what this woman's grandkids were doing and how things were different during the war and what she thought of the young whippersnappers with their heads in their Googles. That must have fallen by the wayside some time in the last seven years like so many dead leaves, left on the forest floor to be trodden into the dirt.

_The past is in the past_.

Apparently, one answer came to him in a dream; he's going to stick with that band story if the gaps in his resume come up. Otherwise everything about last night is going to have to wait for an hour or two, even though he can feel the signs of sleep deprivation and stress showing themselves in the circles around his heavy eyes. If inhaling three pots of coffee in as many hours has granted him some measure of alertness, he's paying the price with shaking hands and skittering thoughts.

Whenever he gets a moment to breathe, questions start popping into his head; what he can say about college, why he left, home, himself, what hobbies he has left. The drill sergaent on the other side of his brain starts telling him he could do more to prepare. It's much the same with matters elsewhere. To think that as much as the imminent interview makes his knees weak, it's less terrifying than what might await him back home. He ought to be ready, right? As if by merely keeping Thelma and Louise back home in mind he'll be a step closer to turning them away from the cliff they're throwing themselves full throttle toward.

Brian's unwitting companion interrupts her story about what the stupid cashier had said to her this morning to tell him how handsome he is, and he bites back thanks to her for giving him the most female attention he's had in seven years.His head is _frying_ in the heat of this bus, too many bodies packed in together. No doubt sweat has darkened the cloth covering his back, stiff and aching in the rigid seats, and it's sticking his hair to his forehead. First item on the first payday shopping list - cycling gear.

When the bus finally rolls up to his stop, he launches himself off and sucks in air like a drowning man. The pavement is slick with the morning's showers, and the sun has decided to put in an appearance seemingly for the sole purpose of turning the air hot and humid. A gentle breeze ruffles the papers he's carrying and points him in the right direction of the bar. The area isn't one he's explored much yet, but it looks interesting and chain store-free – a few little bars and cafes, much like the one he's headed for, and that big thing he's thinking about too much. The new bar is not all that far from the theatre up the street, and cautious optimism went out of the window as soon as he looked it up and started imagining actors and crew adjourning for the evening. It's not too late to pick up where he left off. He could still start making some connections.

But first things first. He's got to get through the next half-hour without falling asleep or running out crying before anything else.

He weaves his way through the handful of smokers congregated by the door and once inside he's enveloped by cool conditioned air and a quiet Beatles song, refreshing after the heat haze outside and the crowds of people moving like molasses. The bar is a lot smaller than he'd imagined, as sparsely frequented as he dreamed, but little else bears any resemblance to what his head came up with. One long, open room, with the bar at the back and a couple of doors leading away. The outside is painted pristine white but the interior walls are a deep red that brings down the high ceiling and feels close, warm. Little lamps line all the walls, and he can just picture the haloes of glowing orange they'll emit onto the crimson once the sun sets. There'll be more people occupying the booths and barstools then, surely. Nowhere is the frosted glass and frigid white paint he imagined. They're going for a Mediterranean kind of thing and it half-works. Under him the floorboards are worn down, far from the gleaming polish he imagined, with a creak as he puts one foot forward.

Nobody's told him where to go or who to ask for. Not that there's anything to stop him marching up to the bar and asking. He'd have more or less thrown himself into the room with a fanfare once upon a time, but something holds him back. The creaking floorboard resounds in the quiet room. When the faces circling him turn in his direction there's certainly curiosity that forces his eyes down, wondering what he's done that's strange or wrong to warrant it, yet he's not detecting suspicion. If there's a glance in his direction, it's not so purposeful as that.

Except for one red-haired girl in a pink T-shirt making eyes at him. Or is she staring at something strange in his expression, his demeanour? He's aware of shuffling a little and probably giving off some kind of off-putting awkward signal. But now she's coming over. The clock is ticking until interview time but he's in the building already, after all, and however the main event goes it might be good to have _some_ kind of promise to take away from this. Close up, she's all freckles and high cheekbones and there's a dimple in her left cheek when she smiles - which she's doing. Right at him. It's doing things to the pit of his stomach and suddenly lighter head that he hasn't felt in longer than he can guess at.

"Are you the 12:30?" she says, and it's then he notices the pin on her shirt pronouncing her staff.

"Brian." He offers his hand and if it's a little anticlimactic right now, at least he's spared the embarrassment of asking where he's going.

"Laurel - follow me."

If it's so quiet, perhaps there weren't as many candidates for the job as he'd guessed. Or it could be that he's late to the party - though, again, could he not be in with a good chance because going near to last makes him that little bit more memorable? He flits between one idea and another more than he'd thought possible in the short distance between the entrance and the door to the left of the bar, grinning at anyone he passes just in case he's serving them before long.

“So, um... what do you like about working here?” Now seems as good a time as any to work through some of his interest-indicative questions to ask the interviewer, which he assumes she is and that adds a whole new level of mouth-drying expectation to the proceedings. Seeing what he wants to be _his_ bar in person for the first time makes his spine tingle and he's mentally working out the floor plan and taking note of where things are already. The top row of varicoloured bottles would look like distant city lights in the dark, outside reflecting in.

Laurel seems right at home amongst it. She moves with a slow saunter and keeps throwing her head back to smile at him. Looking at her she's most likely a little older than him, but she's damn near glowing with health and enthusiasm and all those other things he used to have, too. “The overtime right now, what with my mortgage, but that's probably not selling it to you. Watch the walls here, it's only just been painted.”

Brian duly avoids touching the wall of the narrow corridor he's led into and from which, sure enough, there's a faint smell of paint. At first it takes him back to moving house as a child, choosing the room with the best view of the street outside and begging for the warmest yellow he could find on the walls. Then he sees of his brother, two years his junior and setting up home and family before him. Not that it was ever a race between them or anything; the only thing he lost out on is time. Strange to think that the world went about business as usual without him. The past might in the past but there's so much he has to catch up on.

The red on the walls strikes very close to the shade of his shirt. He feels kind of chameleonic, following through the corridor. Signs of prior delapidation poke through as they go - a stack of flattened cardboard boxes here, a fraying carpet there, a fickering bulb on its last legs. Looking around everywhere else he's been interviewed, it seemed like order was estabished on arrival and there's already the right amount of people in place and it's hard to see himself fitting in with their established in-jokes, intruding on the rapport everyone's got going on. Here, he's feeling a connection, spotting blanks where he could place himself. It's kind of like a fresh start for both him and this building.

Laurel holds the door to the back room for him, closing it behind him with a decidedly final click. The low hum of chatter from outside is shut off as sudden as a needle lifting off the groove, and Brian follows past a row of lockers and hangers to another door, behind which lies the office space. Laurel takes a seat at a table next to an older, salt-and-pepper-haired man who introduces himself as Sam. He has a pointed and rather lengthy nose that seems perfect for disdaining people, looking Brian up and down behind a pair of austerely framed spectacles. And then there's Laurel, who's adjusting the tight T-shirt that's ridden up to show a tiny stretch of skin around her hips, and intimidating for other reasons.

There's handshakes all round, and Brian sits, fighting off a yawn from the heat in the cramped little room. Much like the bar, it's shabbier than he imagined and all the more welcoming for it. He's sat in a grey and beige colour scheme that looks unfinished – the walls could do with a coat of paint, there's coffee stains and stacks of paper on the table that Laurel is sifting through with clumsy fingers and a nervous energy that puts his mind at ease about his own.

“We'd be starting you off on the day shift, when it's quieter,” says Laurel, looking up. “In time you'd probably end up having to be more flexible, though.”

“That's... great.” There should be something more to this answer, but it's not coming. _I like change, I like being kept busy_ \- all of it's going to sound over-enthusiastic, or false, or like he's scraping the bottom of the barrel for answers. “I think I'll like starting off quiet. I'll have time to get to know people that way.”

_Oh fuck_. Was that the wrong thing to say? He came out with it in the hope of seeming approachable, friendly, but what if they think he'll spend the whole time chatting instead of getting on with his work? Both faces before him are unreadable – is there a special management school where they take you aside and tell you how to throw your applicants as few bones as possible?

Besides which, he's speaking as the old Brian. What if he starts during the day and they notice he was lying, that in actual fact the thought of working when there's fewer people to distract one another from him actually makes him want to curl into a ball under the table, and it's over?

Laurel is still fiddling with papers on the table before her, oblivious to the drama playing out behind his smile. "What drew you to this position, Brian?"

He clears his throat against the tension that's built up there. "Well, I like being around people first and foremost..." and it's easy to sink back into his former skin for a while, speak as the self he remembers. But it's like putting on an old jacket that's lost shape languishing at the back of the wardrobe. He recites the band story as he practised, and semi-conscious, his mind starts doing whatever it wants. Which, apparently, involves making up more for him to worry about – Jay being as resourceful as he can be when he needs to and finding money for a drink from somewhere, Jay getting drunk and finishing his demolition job, Jay not getting drunk and getting angry about it and finishing his demolition job, Jay getting angry with himself and... doing something really stupid.

Brian is well aware that the worst thing he could do is keep inventing these scenarios, but all he can see is the mess on the living room floor and Jay crying on the bed. Last night was unprecedented unless you count the fight he had with the shower curtain last week, with Brian donning his cape again to stop Jay slipping and breaking his neck. Quiet little Jay from college never hurting a fly, dogging their footsteps and filming his own feet... Can he really be the same drunken thug who took apart their living space last night?

Maybe they've been ignoring warning signs because it's flat-out surreal to see someone behave so violently out of their character. Trying to talk reason with Jay himself would be like going outside and politely asking the rain that's sheeting down periodically to turn around and come back tomorrow. He needs help. Probably help of an away from home kind, but where does the money come from? And there's Tim. Tim who is allowed to hate himself until it's incapacitating but unleashes with the precision of a sniper the cruelest words he can upon anyone who dares to suggest he's barking up the wrong tree. Brian's caught between a rock and a hard place and the whole thing's going to subside if he doesn't come up with _something_.

He's afraid, terribly afraid, too, because he was the one who suggested weaning Jay off cameras and computers, that he let his hair down a little, that maybe a beer or two would help him relax and learn to laugh again. Now he never leaves the house unless he's dragging himself to the place with the cheapest drinks he can find. Always alone. Brian took him out the first time and - _no_. That way lies a tangle of suppositions and accusations and badly-drawn conclusions he could spend the rest of his life trying to unravel only to find he'd only made more knots to work through, and they're all better off without the blame game. But it's circling him like a bird of prey, stalking the wreckage of the living room as it glints in the back of his head. If he had any sense he would've learned not to meddle in other people's lives after suggesting that joining in with Alex's film might be a great way for Tim to make new friends.

_Stop that_.

All he can try to do is be there when it happens, whatever 'it' may be.

Laurel is laughing across from him. Against the way her warm brown eyes light up, the rest of this room looks even greyer. If he takes nothing else from today, at least there's the knowledge that he can still make a woman smile. "So, what was the band called?"

"The, uh... the Marble Hornets," he says at length. The bare room isn't giving him any ideas so it was that or whatever the probably inappropriate joke suggestion he made to Tim earlier was. The name falls from his lips, and he's back on college campus, brushing Dorito dust off his shorts and leafing through a script. It was quite the kicking he received after teasing Alex about the fact that his movie title sounded more like a band name, and then the room starts spinning. Searching for a focal point his eyes fall on the red light of a digital clock on the adjacent shelf - _it's 12:43, it's a Friday, you're here, get a grip_. As he regains his breath, he realises they're waiting with raised eyebrows for more of his answer. "It was just fairly generic indie stuff, really. Nothing too special, looking back, but we had fun." _Steer it back on course now_. "And it was useful, because we pretty much managed ourselves and it made me organised, and used to handling money, and it's not as though I've never had to break up a bar fight before."

They laugh, thank God. "You must be a pretty determined guy to have stuck with it so long," says Laurel.

"I like to finish what I start."

But when does determination not to quit become pig-headed stubbornness doing no-one any good? It's something he's had cause to ask himself a lot lately. Sometimes the strong thing to do, surely, is to admit defeat and pick up the pieces and move on to pastures new? Love is love as long as everyone's enjoying themselves - that's what he's always said. But they're not enjoying themselves, so where does that leave him?

They never even told him what was going on between them. _Fine;_ it's not like Brian has any entitlement to the knowledge and he certainly doesn't want the grittier details. At the same time they've never tried to hide it, just left him to guess at the nature of their relationship from the creaking mattress in Tim's room, or all the times they'd both disappear and the shower ran for half an hour. Even so, it took him aback that time he caught them in the kitchen, enough that he thought he might as well ask if either of them wanted coffee even though Jay was on his knees in front of Tim and neither of them disposed to speak.

Thankfully, he's diverted from that thought by the next question. That and Laurel, and the way the dimple in her cheek is pronounced when she smiles. She's still sifting through the papers in front of her, looking up from under her eyelashes in a way that's... kind of coquettish? "So, what did you get out of your time in college that'll help you here, do you think?"

"Making cocktails." _Fuck_. A perfect example of why saying the first thing to come to mind isn't always such a good idea. Now they'll think he's taking this interview every bit as seriously as he seems to've taken his college time – not at all. Yet after a terrifying split second it precipitates another laugh, and his shoulders loosen. He had been damn good at making cocktails, after all. _Can I still do that_? Practising at home obviously isn't the best idea right now, but it stands to reason the knowledge base should still be there. As time's worn on it's proven hard to know. Some things he can do like it was yesterday, others seem to have faded with lost time - his physical fitness, mostly. He tried going for a run and managed all of twenty minutes before his lungs clogged with razorblades and he walked home dragging his feet in the rain. Chances are, he'll never quite come to terms with it - being aware that time elapsed, but having next to no memory of it.

Which is the opposite of the position he finds himself in now, two faces looking at him expectantly after time has flown away from him and he missed the question. _What were we talking about_? College. So he waffles for a little while, about all the clubs he got involved with - drama, football - pretending he's still Brian the life and soul of the party. All while mentally barrel-rolling under the fact that he was in a student film once. Stirring up memories causes ripples, bringing up things that should've been left on the riverbed.

Tim had a single bed in his first off-campus apartment; the most succinct and eloquent demonstration of his loneliness and low expectations Brian could've asked for. So if he was surprised about him and Jay, it was a happy one. And at first he could kind of see it. If they're in a room together they seem to follow in their own field of gravity, whether they're nestling ever closer while watching TV or having their eyes drift involuntarily toward the other whenever there's nothing else to focus on. If they didn't say much, it was none of his business, and maybe they really were attuned to one another on some level he couldn't comprehend.

It took a couple of weeks to work out that no, their staring doe-eyed isn't an expression in a language he can't understand. They're just awkward silences. Then Tim started working, Jay started hitting the bottle, and the ensuing arguments are the most he's ever heard them speak to one another.

If you're falling, you're going to grab any lifeline you can. _I get that_. It's an impulse that kicks in before you think to check who's holding the rope. But last night's come as a sudden turn on a long, winding road and now Brian can't help wondering if their relationship has become a time bomb, something toxic that's only going to fester the longer it's left. Between Jay's proclamation that they never should've met and Tim's exquisitely eloquent response of “Fucking fuck you, you mad fucking slut”, Brian is _deeply swayed_ by the notion that they have beautiful feelings for one another.

He's run out of things to say. He might as well faceplant hard into the table for letting himself get carried away with his own thoughts like that, _here_ of all places. It just wasn't like this before. Brian's used to being _involved._ If he pulled an all-nighter it was because there simply wasn't time enough in the day for everything he wanted to do. Now he just stays awake to avoid terrors in his sleep that cast their shadow over his days nonetheless. Hiding something is still pretty new to him. He never felt like he had to plan out what he was going to say or worry about what the 'right' thing might be. Words just shaped themselves into responses in his head, based on what he knew of the other person, just like everyone else does.

And now that he doesn't really know anyone there's nothing to go on, so he's stuck in self-perpetuating anxiety second-guessing everything that suggests itself. Is this the right wording? Should a person his age know more about that thing than he does? Has he had said something to hint that all's not been right with his head? Week after week he has to psych himself up to look a cashier in the eye, while he still feels his old self like a phantom limb pain. He's become a shadow, trembling like the last leaf on the tree. For _no reason_. _How do you put a positive spin on that, careers advisor_? If this is how Tim and Jay have had to live their whole lives, maybe it's not so unlikely they'd be drawn together.

“What would you say was your biggest weakness?”

_Oh God_. It's Sam and not Laurel asking and his voice is more formal, more pointed, like he has an answer in mind already. Brian's always had a pretty healthy grasp of his weaknesses – he says the wrong thing at the wrong time and he cares about people but he cares too much and he keeps interfering where it's not his place to. Kind of like the one in the hood.

The thought knocks the breath from him and sends waves of dead shivers up his spine while he chokes out something about perfectionism and deadlines.

“And what have you learned from your mistakes?”

_Beware film students. It's only going to be awkward if you live with your best friend and his sick boyfriend. Never advise the latter to self-medicate with alcohol – throwing that out just in case you're as dumb as I am. Don't trust men in suits - present company excepted, of course._

He takes a breath.

_The past is in the past_.

“That you can't please everyone, and you can't make them act the way you want, either. You have to let things go and move on rather than letting them drag you down.” He grabs the pen and paper in front of him and scribbles without looking so _oh God please_ they won't see how much his hands are shaking. “Like... I often think the customer _isn't_ always right. But pretending like they are is easy, if you can laugh to yourself at how very wrong they are.”

Laurel nods. For the first time, it must be, since... coming round, he's had a 'me, too' moment with someone other than Tim, and that's got to be an achievement of a sort he can take away from today. "What are your long-term goals, Brian? Where do you see yourself in five years?"

_Five years_ . That's less than the time he lost. It hits him like a lead weight and he has to focus on the clock again; 13:10. Time's going faster than he thought. _What the hell was I talking about the whole time? What am I meant to be talking about now, again? Goals._ And then there's a "Eureka!" moment; that's the defining difference between Jay, and himself and Tim. The two of them have goals and loose plans - something to aim for. Something to get better for. And Jay doesn't, maybe he never has. He used to trail around after whoever would have him around in his film class filming everyone's feet, then he trailed anything and everyone he could in his little investigation and kept filming his own feet on his own initiative, and now he's lost the strength to even follow. It's one of those truths that's so painfully self-evident it takes time to pick up on and Brian's speechless, new knowledge like a brimming cup in danger of spilling over.

Still, it's one thing to have insight, and another to have impetus. Where does he go from here? Tim's always said he was a friend _because_ he didn't pry, didn't demand an answer deeper than the one given, didn't tell Tim what to do. But what kind of friend would sit back and let him sink deeper like this? Through having nothing better to do than watch a lot of daytime TV he loves the idea of pulling off a Dr. Phil-style intervention, but this is the real world.

"I want to... act," he says, hesitant. It's no less embarrassing than it was when he was younger - more so, in a way, since while he wasn't aware time was passing it went on without him nonetheless, so here he is with the dreaded thirty fast approaching and all those years just lost in the wilderness. He's kidding himself if he doesn't think he's too old to break into it now.

_I want to act. And here, I'd be acting all the time_. He's never had to do this before – his words saying one thing, his mind and probably all his treacherous body language another. Quite frankly he should have the damn Oscar for even being here right now. Bitterness is by far the most useless of emotions. It corrodes you and validates those who put you there. But it's _so fucking hard_ not to think about the fact that he had it all. Friends, a future. Happiness. Interests. If he wasn't the best actor or the best guitarist or the best football player in the world it was beside the point, because it was _fun_ , and he was only going to get better. For what felt like such a long time he was messing around on camera with his friends and no worry greater than a GPA – how on Earth could seven, eight years have gone by? Now his whole life is going to be a fucking performance, and if it's not yet looking like quite the burden Jay describes, it's nothing to get excited about.

_The past is in the past. Take a deep breath, and just answer the question_.

"I want to act and I feel like actually living in the world is more helpful for that than school, you know? But it means I'm good at keeping my cool when I need to, and I'm adaptable, so I can wait tables if you need someone to cover..."

By the time he's ushered out Brian has the two of them convinced he's a musician turned actor living with a stand-up comedian specialising in sarcasm, and a performance artist who's doing a particularly powerful piece on alcohol abuse. Concocting this bohemian lifestyle and playing up to the impression he gets from the musical choices and selection of paintings in the bar seems like the best card he has to play after mumbling his way through the whole thing, one step from propping his eyes up with matches. He's fuzzy-headed and probably in no state to reflect on anything, but reviewing as much as he can... _that didn't go too badly at all_. He takes one last look around the place as he pushes out of the door, like he's viewing a new home. In the corner of eye it might, _might_ just be that Laurel's eyes are still following him. He smiles, but it's accompanied by a sinking feeling. It's been too long.

Going to bed alone seems like a good enough idea right now, though. _I want to go to sleep_. He's reached a level of exhausion where it feels physically impossible to think or do anything else. But it's not fair to leave everything for Tim to look forward to when he gets home in the same kind of catatonia. Practically blind with it he stumbles around the first store he finds that carries anything resembling fresh ingredients, because he has a plan - house meal, house meeting. Tim left him a little money for housekeeping and Brian's sure he won't mind. First, they're all going to sit down and eat something that's seen neither a microwave nor a takeout carton for the first time since Christ knows. Then, they're all going to talk.

It's almost a twisted miracle that two people so awkward ever managed to articulate themselves well enough to make a move on each other to begin with. Brian can't imagine how it happened other than "I tripped and fell on his -" and even that is a mental picture far more vivid than he really wants. A bus turns up quickly enough to distract him, and when it sets off again, there's a feeling of a real journey beginning. Thick grey cloud is amassing overhead, rain washing in sheets over the windows as they move. A storm's on the way, and in spite of everything, Brian smiles. He's heading home to batten down the hatches.


	6. Improvisation

_Stranger than kindness, bottled light from hotels_  
 _Spilling everything_  
 _Wet hand from the volcano sobers your skin_  
 _Your sleeping hands, they journey, they loiter_  
 _You hold me so carelessly close_  
 _Tell me I'm dirty_  
 _I'm a stranger to kindness_  
\- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

_"I can't sleep with that thing on, I told you."_

“ _Yeah, well.” Jay places the infernal device on the table beside the bed he proceeds to claim as his by throwing his backpack onto it unceremoniously. "I can't sleep with it off, so it stays."_

_Tim has more to say on the matter, but a yawn stifles it. He opens the window and lodges himself precariously on the sill. Evidently not designed to be sat on, staying there requires attention to balance but he'll be damned if he's paying for this room to go and smoke outside the lobby. Not when he's never needed a cigarette so badly._

_Sitting across from Jay in the diner and trying every small talk trick in the book really hasn't boded well for the time they're about to spend together. The guy says nothing when prompted but periodically starts thinking out loud in infuriating fragmented sentences not meant for Tim's ears but reaching them anyway. Maybe it's symptomatic of being too long on the road, but Tim's shoulders ache and his eyes are blurring and the need to get into bed drowns out every other thought, including sympathy. Trouble is, they've elected to share a room for the sake of cost... and the camera's coming, too._

_Tim scowls, that little pinprick of red light intensifying in his narrowed eyes. They've driven through the night and most of the day, neither of them needing to say they were keen to put as many miles between themselves and Rosswood as possible. Once the sun started to sink and the world grew dimmer again, pulling over seemed like the lifting of a load from his aching back. Until he realised exactly how much fun he was about to have sharing a room with Jay. And the camera. He'd get in his car for the night instead, but the fact that money's already changed hands keeps him where he is._

_Jay's started unpacking. Why he's bothering to put his clothes in the bedside drawer for one night is anyone's guess. He meets Tim's eyes across the room, and his shoulders fall. "Are you going to be like this the entire time?"_

_Tim exhales an aptly dragon-like plume of smoke in front of his eyes. "Like what?"_

_"Like... that. Don't forget this was your idea."_

_"I'm just saying, you can stop filming yourself for five minutes. Nothing's going to happen to you."_

_Jay's answer, apparently for everything, is to open his laptop. Perched on the edge of the bed and underlit in the unforgiving ice blue of the screen, he looks gaunt and rabid as he starts to type. Ten fingers move in a blur over the keys. Tim has never actually heard wild horses stampeding over a corrugated iron roof, so he can't say for sure, but it's a safe guess that the sound wouldn't be too far away._

_"Do you have to be so loud?"_

_Jay keep his eyes on the screen. "Nobody's making you stay in here if you don't want to. I'm certainly not."_

_"Okay, if you're kicking me out of the room that I worked to pay for, fine."_

_Jay's speechless for a moment, whether through exasperation or realising Tim has a point, he can't tell. "I'm going in the shower."_

_Tim presses his hands to his chest and lets his jaw drop. "You're not taking the camera with you?"_

_Jay furrows his brow, either from confusion because he thought the question was genuine or because he can't think of a comeback. "I'm... going in the shower."_

_"Have fun!"_

_All he hears is a mutter; something he doesn't quite catch. Tim waits for the door to click and knocks his head against the wall behind him. At any other time he might have been thoroughly amused by his repartee this evening, but it isn't doing either of them any favours, being hostile._

_The rush of running water hit his ears. It's falling as a screen between him and Jay, like the window between him and the rest of the world. He's put in mind of a grainy British film he watched years ago at Alex's behest, something about two British actors getting drunk in the country and having a really bad time of it. Memory is hazy, most likely due to everyone gathered to watch reaching a similar state of intoxication to the two leads. What he does remember is one line that keeps replaying in his head - "We've come on holiday by mistake". It's scarily fitting here, even with the rain-drenched blues and greys he recalls from the film contrasting the warm evening colours painting the room. Right now the sky is awash with orange and deep purple. Above the thin saplings that line his glorious view of the parking lot, the last light of the sun burns on the horizon._

_A couple arm in arm practically dance into the entrance hall. Two boys, barely a decade between them by the look of it, run in wobbly circles around a car as their parents struggle with luggage. Is this what staring through the bars of a cell would feel like? And for a moment he's back, crouched in the alcove of the window in his hospital room, watching the rest of the world play happy families. As the kids waltz around the car it wouldn't even occur to them to watch every shadow and watch it again because your own eyes can't be trusted. The mother's mouth forms an 'o' when she sees him smoking out of the window, and in reply she's treated to a full-frontal view of his middle finger._

“ _What're you staring at?" The light from the camera is still nagging like a loose eyelash at the corner of his vision. Using Jay's lens cap as an ashtray in yet another passive-aggressive display of maturity is an overwhelmingly tempting idea, but in the end, he can't be bothered to make the trip across the room. Maybe not swearing at strangers would be a good iplan while his every move will be recorded. He wipes his forehead, picking at the dampened hair flattened to it. The room is too hot and the walls too close._

I don't _want_ to be like this. _People will tell you that to recognise a wrongdoing is to absolve yourself of guilt, and quite frankly, that says more about their skill for self-deception than it bears any philosophical weight. Tim is well aware in the second it takes for a sentence to travel from his mind to his mouth that Jay is undeserving of whatever caustic remark he's about to make, and all he's doing is lashing out over his inability to live the life he wants and embarrassment about what happened the last time they saw one another. Breaking down on the dirty floor like that. What Jay must think of him now. To acknowledge any of this doesn't change any outcome, though, and only makes him feel worse for saying what he likes anyway. He hadn't thought it possible to be angrier with himself than he already was for consigning himself to a life on the run accompanied by Prometheus with a cap and a camera in there. Wrong again._

Jay's lived like this for years. At least you got the luxury of forgetting the worst of it _._

_So the one voice tells him, while the other continues to counter that Jay's woe was undertaken optionally. What Tim would've done to have had all those chances to turn back. His mind is not his own - it's a familiar tale, but one that hits him with new depth of meaning every time it's told, just like a classic should. Why must both of the voices be so clever? Because try as he might, Tim just doesn't have it in him to be mad at Jay anymore. Yes, he still sees the hijacked medical records and himself in that mask most times he closes his eyes. But when they're open, he sees Jay's pallor and protruding bones, and the bags under his eyes like a readout of all the troubles he's carrying. He's suffered too much already, and the last thing he needs is to be the recipient of Tim's temper and its malfunctioning homing instinct._

_Tim's moved to his bed by the time Jay returns, rubbing his head with a towel and modelling a brown pyjama set that reveals a lot of pale, bony limb. Clothes to sleep in - now_ that's _organisation. It hadn't even occurred to Tim to pack anything of the kind; he usually just kicks off his pants and curls up when he gets tired. Sleep for him has to be taken as and when his brain offers it, after all._

_Jay only glances at Tim out of the corner of his eye, wary, and doesn't seem to trust his smile. "I was thinking that, um, maybe one of us goes to sleep first and the other stays on guard for a while?"_

_"Whatever." Tim's facing away from Jay and pulling things out of his opened backpack, not for any particular purpose other than having something to do with his hands and something to look at other than Jay's bandy legs._

_"It just makes more sense than sleeping together and - um, I mean sleeping at the same time..."_

_Jay is_ blushing _, for God's sake, like he really thinks Tim would take it that way. He's trying to find a way to be annoyed by it, but it's kind of endearing. It's even pulling at the corners of his lips. "At least now I know why you were so adamant about sharing a room."_

_"Hey, it might be more fun than painting each other's toenails."_

_The echo of Tim's very helpful suggestion when Jay had first mooted sharing a room makes him wince. Jay's doing it, too, looking at the floor with his cheeks turning red. He clears his throat and runs his hands through his hair. Like he's overstepped some boundary and worries that he's said the wrong thing. But Tim gets it. Sometimes a personality is a luxury you can't afford. If you shut yourself off from talking much, you leave people nothing but a blank state to laugh at, a shield your real self is safe behind._

_But the toxic tension in the air has eased, finally. Jay's sitting with his laptop back on his knee, not switched on yet, and he's poised like he's on the brink of something. "I... I really do appreciate it, by the way. You working so much to pay for this, and all."_

_Tim shrugs. "I'd have been doing it anyway. It's not like I could stay back there much longer." And suddenly there's a lump in his throat and he has to bite down on his lip as his brain flings taunts of happy memories at him; decorating his house, driving home proud of himself, the couple of times he adjourned to the bar with his co-workers - not that he said a lot, but it was nice to let everyone else's conversation flow around him, like sinking into a hot bath. The sense that the weirdo alarm he's been carrying all his life had finally stopped ringing. All gone now, because he's marked, cursed, and he's to blame and he doesn't notice he's crying until his face is already wet._

_He starts pacing in the hope that Jay won't notice, but typical of Tim's luck, he's chosen now to get observant. "Are you okay?"_

_"What does it look like? Quit staring. It's not like you've never seen this before."  A fresh blush of shame over his behaviour in that hospital washes over his face. If Jay could just for once get out of where he wasn't welcome and stop asking stupid questions and take his fucking camera with him... he folds over with his head in his hands._

_"Is this about... what you were talking about at the hospital?” In the sliver of vision left to his half-closed eyes barred behind fingers, Tim can see Jay stand, shuffling his feet. “You were sick, Tim."_

“ _I might've been. Or I might've been with... seeing that thing the whole time, and I'll never know exactly._ I am never going to know! _Just try to imagine that. What if it's my fault and all I can do is...” he's choking, spitting the words out, “_ cry _about it? You must think I'm pretty fucking pathetic, I know."_

_Jay's feet pad across the floor. The only other sound in the room is the air conditioning, amplified by silence and the perplexity of what's about to happen next. Jay is probably regretting ever taking him along, and he can't really be faulted for that. All Tim does is criticise and cry. It really is pathetic, and the best he can hope for is a better day tomorrow where they'll wake up and never speak of this again._

_"But I don't think that at all."_

_Jay's beside him, heralded only by passing of air and the position of his voice. When Tim dares to look, he's standing with his arms open. “Is it okay if I, um, do you want me to...?”_

_He's rotating his wrist, as though it'll speed along the search for a word on the tip of his tongue. Tim nods to him, just so Jay won't be standing there like an awkward scarecrow all night, just so he won't crumple on the floor. On occasion, on the very rare occasions he's been too flooded with emotion to keep it all behind a barricade, people take Tim's tears and his troubles as an invitation to forget about the notion of personal space and treat him like a sad stuffed toy or something. They're told in no uncertain terms what he thinks of it, and keep their distance. Somehow, the fact that Jay asked and offered first means it's soothing when an arm snakes around his shoulders. He's leading them somewhere – his bed, which is nearer._

_They sit and Tim lets himself settle against Jay, who's speaking with a stammer. "Even if it's true, about, you know... you thinking you brought that thing on all of us, then you didn't mean to do it, and you couldn't have known." Jay pauses, and then his voice comes back firmer than Tim has ever heard it. "And even then, why the hell should you have live your life without making any friends? Just because of something way out of your control?"_

_Jay takes one of Tim's trembling hands in both of his. He's immobilised for a second, but there's really no way for him to look more useless than he already does, and he gives up to sobbing onto Jay's shoulder. Jay has both arms around him now, one hand gripping his bicep and the other brushing his back, bearing the brunt of his weight. On impulse Tim wraps his arms around Jay's waist and pulls him close. There's a dim awareness that he's probably crossing some boundary of personal space - when was the last time anyone held him when he was upset? - but Jay is warm and sturdy and_ _i_ _f any of this is making him uncomfortable, he doesn't make any move to stop._

_"You're so hard on yourself. I - I don't think you're pathetic at all. You were sick, and then we got caught up in all of this but you, I don't know, keep going. I think it's kind of amazing that you can come through all of that. And you're looking at the future, trying to get back to a normal life. That's more than I can do. I think you're probably, like, the bravest person I've ever known."_

_Tim shifts his head to look up at Jay, still nestled into his shoulder. "It's a good thing I know you're a terrible liar." He's welling up with more tears, but can't keep a smile from his face. "Otherwise I'd never believe you."_

" _It's not like I know many people anymore, so maybe it's not such a huge compliment. I mean it, though." He pauses. "I think it was back in the hospital, that last time. When you said... you said something like Alex could be living a normal life if it wasn't for y- if it wasn't for everything that's happened. And I thought, after everything he's done to you, you'd have to be so strong to still think of him like that. Like he's a person and all."_

_Jay keeps talking, about how he should've done this back in the hospital but felt too awkward. He bites his lip gently when he seems to run out of words, and that's when Tim realises he's been watching Jay's mouth intently enough for everything in his peripheral vision to fade to grey. How soft they look even with a coating of dry skin, and the pink flush that marks them as the only real colour on Jay's face. Except for his eyes. More green than blue in the dim lighting, vibrant even with the shadows that lie beneath them. Tim's just sitting in silence, afraid to break it with clumsy words that won't come close to what he feels. Doctors tell him he does well when he manages to perform some basic household task without fucking up, but this is different._

_No-one has ever said anything remotely like what Jay's saying to him before. He's been laughed at and patronised and coddled in roughly equal measures, but never lauded. To be admired for what he does, not what he is. At some point Jay's hand has moved from Tim's back to run over his hair, gentle enough that he hadn't noticed - gentle enough, or welcome enough._ Is that meant to be weird? H _e doesn't care._ It's just nice. _Soothing, like the warmth of Jay's skin through his shirt._

_They're close enough for Tim to feel Jay's heart beating, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, the reverberation of it in his throat. He'd only have to tilt his head to brush his lips along the right side of Jay's jawline. He lets the idea sit experimentally. It's not one he's been harbouring before now, but then neither was hugging, and that's working out better than he could've imagined._

_He doesn't realise he's done it until he feels Jay jolt and pull away. The hand that's been in his hair falls to the sheets behind him._

_"Are you serious?"_

_Tim freezes in the ice water of needling paralysis that hits him. "You... you were stroking my hair..." It's an excuse more than an argument._

_Jay is rigid, gripping the covers. "It just kind of seemed like the right thing to do."_

Idiot. As if anyone would look twice at you when you're red-eyed and covered in snot _. There's a further apology in there somewhere but it's lodging like cracker crumbs in his dry mouth._ What were you hoping to accomplish by kissing him, exactly _? Bringing on a fatal heart attack, possibly, if the thudding in his chest is anything to go by. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing, since the unfathomable abyss he wants to swallow him up doesn't look likely to be appearing on the ragged carpet any time soon._

_Jay's not saying anything, but his inviting body heat is still pressed to Tim's side. He drifts to a few drunken encounters with girls back in college, and slowly the warmth and softness of another person's skin against his own, thrilling in its unfamiliarity, builds to a need he's never felt before. He should extricate himself from this embrace before some of the immodest ideas running through his head get any worse. But to move would mean acknowledging that this is actually happening, so it's back to good old avoidant mode and the hope this can just be something else they won't talk about. He's only making things worse by refusing to let go, but this little imaginary bubble is cosy for a while. Jay's arms are still around him - slacker than before, but there all the same. His heart's beating faster too, almost in sync with Tim's._

“ _I'm sorry, Jay.”_

_"Don't be." And then Jay's hand cups the side of his face - gentle, trembling, coercion to turn toward him. Tim closes his eyes and somewhere in the middle they bump noses. Now they're close enough for Tim to feel the damp, warm exhalation as Jay catches his breath, but it's an awkward eternity before Jay's lips close on his. Delicate as the wingbeat of moths they move against each other, the length of Tim's spine bristling vertebrae by vertebrae like signal lights, like his touch had some static charge to it._

_Until he pulls away. His hand drops from Tim's face and he clasps both on his lap, like an penitent. "Look, I'm sorry. You're kind of emotional right now. I shouldn't have done that."_

_"Jay..." Tim still has him caged in his arms. He lets one hand drift to cover Jay's, cold and quivering. Stroking the smaller man's slender fingers with his knuckles ushers back his smile, and Jay turns his head towards him until their foreheads press together. There's a look on his face that's new. He's seen Jay wide-eyed before, and there's the way his lips part and tremble when he's shocked – but it's always been in fear. He's still quaking, disbelief is there, but it's awe and wonderment that it's stemming from if the light in his eyes is anything to go by. All for Tim. Because of what he's doing. To think he's able to bring that out in another person makes deliciously anxious shivers wash over him again._

_"You really want to...?"_

“ _Only if you...”_

“ _But you hate me.”_

_Tim laughs and touches his lips to Jay's again, this time lingering for a heart-stopping second. Jay tastes sweet and faintly like toothpaste, clean and tingling. "I wanted to hate you." Impossible to believe now. He's not entirely sure what he feels toward Jay - some deeply confusing compound of affection, pity, and gratitude. And turning up unannounced, flaring like blue touch paper, is a lust his bewildered hesitancy doesn't want to dwell on – which, like a joke that becomes funnier when you're not allowed to laugh at it, makes the idea of touching him even more enticing. Simpler to just kiss his cheek. "I was mad, I was scared, and you were just... there. But you're..."_

_Tim is not eloquent at the best of times. But Jay is warm under the thin fabric and when Tim presses him closer he can feel the life moving in his heart and chest and right now, that's all that matters._

_Riding a surge of adrenaline from this unexpected turn of events, he moves in for a wetter and more ardent taste of his lips. Eyes closed, Jay smiles against him –_ Jesus, when was the last time I saw him do that? - _and he's responding in turn by pulling gently at Tim's lower lip with both of his. Their mouths and lips are dry and they catch one another's cheekbones and noses in fumbling exploration, but the hair on his arms is standing up all the same._

_A hand starts to rub the small of Tim's back with gentle circles from his fingertips, brushing just under his clothing. Encouraged, Tim moves to breach the collar of Jay's shirt, tracing the ridges of his neck, his collarbones, sliding ever so slightly underneath the fabric to rest on a shoulder. His mouth opens, wordless invitation to Jay's tongue. A stifled moan is crushed into the kiss as they ebb and flow._

_With reasoning no more thought out than recognising that tomorrow morning is going to be awkward anyway, Tim breaks the kiss to pull at the hem of Jay's shirt. He extends his arms, ready, as it's torn over his head. Only now does Tim notice just how thin he looks – fragile, with a porcelain complexion to match. Tim gasps a little when Jay's hand shifts to his front, sliding over his side and stomach, trying to decipher the buttons of his shirt. He's fumbling and palpably tensing until he gives up, grabs the shirt, and yanks upward. It's brazen and passionate and exciting... for about five seconds. The shirt is buttoned high and rolled to the elbows and Tim's caught with his eyes obscured and his arms dangling at shoulder height in front of him like a Halloween ghost._

“ _Um, okay, I'll just keep -”_

“ _Jay, just stop pulling a second. It's hurting my ears.”_

“ _I can't push it back if you keep moving.”_

“ _Just keep_ still _, I'm trying to find the button.”_

_Jay's hands retreat and he starts fighting with the rolls of fabric on Tim's elbows – it's mostly ineffectual fiddling, but his featherlight touch feels good there anyway. After struggling through what feels like billowing galleon sails to undo his top buttons Tim finally frees himself from the shirt and hurls it to the floor with a flourish that would put most matadors to shame. They're both sat with only their knees touching, staring at it, like a symbol for everything that's strange about tonight. Then they're laughing, and somehow their foreheads end up pressed together._

_"What are we doing?" Jay's shaking his head as he crosses his arms over his bony chest._

_Tim shrugs._ Fucked if I know. _"Do you want to stop?"_

_"God, no."_

_In the second before his eyes shut and they move in to kiss again, Tim looks at Jay,_ really _looks at him. There's an allure that he'd recognised before, certainly; he doesn't look like a lot of other people and that in itself caught his attention. But never in a way that made him question the way he thought about women. He has nowhere else to go, now - Jay's looking right at him with doe eyes and a parting of his lips that speaks volumes; surprise, joy, desire. It's intoxicating and a whitewash to any reservations he had; that and just knowing he's giving Jay pleasure in midst of the waking nightmare they're running from. Hearing him sigh and watching his smile. The little sultry sound from the back of his throat, just from the tips of Tim's fingers and the routes they draw over the pale flesh offered up to him . He tries not to focus on the way his ribs are sticking out and instead keep in mind that beautiful wide-eyed astonishment and open smile, and the kiss that he's surprisingly good at as they get to know the orientation of one another's faces._

_Taking things further is a thought to dry his mouth - still firmly fixed to and exploring Jay's. So they stay just kissing, trapped in the motion by fear of the monumental shift in circumstance his mind is pushing towards. But it's getting heated with hands roving in hair and groping backs, clasping each other closer together until their torsos are sticking with an adhesive of sweat and all the little hairs on the back of Jay's neck are starting to prickle beneath his fingers. It's dizzying, the range of reaction he can provoke in another man's body. A few drunken tussles way back in college, done more to tick a box than anything, hadn't engendered even half this feeling of... power? There's the whimpering when he strokes Jay's chest, the gasp when he moves his lips to press at the skin of his neck, and the hand that's slipping down Tim's stomach perilously close to his waistband._

You're probably, like, the bravest person I've ever known.

 _Pushing Jay back onto the bed doesn't take much coercion. And from there it all switches to soft focus, edges blurring into an Impressionist painting and out of reality. Under a shared shelter of blanket Jay's wandering hands trace lines of fire, and Tim fights back kissing black and blue onto his neck. Flushed, panting, enveloped in euphoric fog he has to close his eyes against until there's nothing left of an outside world. Snatches of lusty vowel sounds come and go and they're groping blindly between each other's legs and Tim can't tell who's saying what. He takes them both in hand and it's all messy and scattered and out of rhythm, like a jazz_ _piece, thrilling through its unpredictability._

 _Except that it's over quickly. The room is quiet as coffin space and it's a lot less poetic when Tim regains his breath and realises he's lying half-naked and sweating with two men's semen on the front of his jeans. Jay didn't last long and now he's out like a light –_ fragile _, again. When he's recovered stamina enough to move he grabs his lighter and cigarettes from the table between the beds and staggers back to the window. The night air is a relief from the heat haze that's covering him, and he narrows his vision to look at the burning end of the cigarette and nothing else in this room. It doesn't work. The whole place smells like sex._

_Apparently, Jay hasn't been invading his personal space enough lately, so Tim invited him to well and truly finish the job. He let his guard down for a few minutes of muscular contraction and even looking at Jay is too intense right now. He seems to be sleeping just fine, smirking a little to himself. The already dreamlike nature of their sudden departure coupled with the unforeseen turn things took lends an air of surreality to the whole mess that's probably the only thing keeping Tim from bolting._

_There's no escaping the fact that he's just hit second base with a man_ _he barely knows, barely trusts. Better yet, one he's got to confront in the morning. A few hours ago the most physical contact they'd ever had was Tim thumping him in the face. All of it just because he was a little comforting? What fors and whys assail him, but processing any of it just makes his boneless body ache. There'll be plenty of time for that next day when they don't talk to each other._

_How many people have held him when he's hurting before? A grand total of Brian. He's pretty sure he never wanted to take things further than a hug with him - in fact, the idea is faintly repulsive, even slightly... Tim's never had a sibling, so he can't say for sure, but trying to picture himself with Brian brings up a mental No Entry sign he imagines would be similar. He's not getting that from Jay. It all feels desperate and ugly now, probably due to some ingrained idea that orgasms belong in a marital bed and not starchy motel sheets, some white picket fence guilt tripping he'd thought himself immune to since that path has been long since closed off to him. But he sees the delight in Jay's expression and contrasts it with the ashen-faced, downturned frown he was sporting before. He can still feel the journeys Jay's clumsy hands traced all over his skin, and the kindling sense of being touched and being alive that went with it, and echoing all around is the little satisfied trills from Jay that tell him he's done just the same for him. He's not quite sure what he's feeling now, but it's not a wish to go back in time. Regret's like the unpopular party-killing friend he feels bad for leaving off the invitations, even though they'll all have a better time without it._

_He should probably get into his own bed. He's playing out doing it in his mind. It's only a couple of steps away; he can see himself moving the bag and its spilled contents to the floor and pulling the clean sheets over himself. It starts off like a film behind his eyes, but when he looks at the small mound of belongings stacked up on the bed it seems very far away and so, so much effort for his spent muscles._

_There's really not enough space for two in these beds. Jay has pushed himself over to one side, like he was expecting Tim to stay. He lowers himself to the mattress and lies on his back slowly, stiff and staring straight ahead. And Jay isn't as asleep as he looks, for he rolls over and drapes one arm over Tim's torso, hand resting on his hip like a safety belt. Their legs entwine, Jay murmurs something onto his neck, and with the warmth beside him Tim gives up and lets himself relax. Jay's breathing is steadying in time with his own, winding down until his eyes close._

_And then he notices the red light, like an interrupting parent._

“ _Seriously?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost forgot: "We've come on holiday by mistake" is a reference to _Withnail & I_, which everyone should do themselves a favour and watch when they get the chance.


	7. Torch Song

_Did I dream you dreamed about me?_  
 _Were you hare when I was fox?_  
 _Now my foolish boat is leaning_  
 _Broken lovelorn on your rocks_  
 _For you sing '"Touch me not, touch me not, come back tomorrow"  
_ _Oh, my heart shies from the sorrow_  
\- This Mortal Coil

Tim scans the gaps between streaks of rainwater lashing onto the window for a landmark in the labyrinth of homogeneous neon and traffic noise around him. His head is pounding with a pain like it's about to split open, and nothing in it is nice. _How the fuck do_ I _feel bad_? It's been the only thing in his head all day, a day that's consisted damn near entirely of Murphy's Law in constant, unwavering action. Highlights include dropping his lighter in the toilet, and turning his back on the register long enough for a pack of ten-year-olds to make off with all the Kit Kats. They'll be coming out of his wages, so the household can all look forward to worrying where the next meal is coming from a week or so earlier than usual. It's something of a straw of added resentment to break the back of the uncooperative camel he's been tugging around since he left this morning.

The buildings and streetlights around him, scattered like starlight through the rain on the glass, thin out the further he drives. Trees take their place at the sides of the road. Setting in is the time of year when all the forest turns dark green or bright orange - velvet on fire. Beautiful, but only from a distance. Within the confines of his car he's immune to the shock of snapping twigs and flurries of movement just caught in the corner of an eye. He's seen Jay cower in the backseat a couple of times, shrinking away from the woods they're passing and keeping his eyes fixed on the driver's seat.

 _Jay_. Tim has been short-changing customers and misplacing stock all day. Realistically Jay had enough to drink last night to incapacitate him until at least early afternoon, by which point Brian should've been home. Brian, who would've let him know right away if anything worth worrying about had happened. But he shouldn't have gone in the first place. Fuck the job. There are other jobs. There'll only ever be one Jay and he needs a shoulder right now.

Red and yellow lights reflecting in the puddles on the road tail the cars up ahead like fireworks. They'd been talking about what to do for the holiday season. Jay's not too festive lately but Brian, being Brian, more than makes up for that. For Tim in the past it's always been voyeuristic, glimpsing the highest climbers from a firework display through his hospital window or trying to stave off an anxiety attack when the frat party in the next room wouldn't _shut the flying fuck up_ for so much as a second. But as it's been years since either of them spent a holiday season in anything other than isolation and fear, even longer since poor Brian had any notion of it, and as Tim missed out on being a child first time around he's been making up for lost time. Budgeting for decorations, searching for gifts, planning everything down to their TV schedule. The three of them sitting down for dinner seems as much use as pasting paper over a crack in a supporting wall, now. All because Tim couldn't keep his mouth shut.

And again; _How the fuck do I feel bad_?

Jay's always been able to do this. Whether it's putting Tim's personal life online for all to see or repeatedly threatening him with physical harm, Jay will do it until Tim is too beside himself to respond with anything but extremes. Then he'll look doe-eyed and skinny and plead innocent in that roundabout way he does until Tim ends up feeling like the villain. His first day at work began with Jay crying and clutching him and throwing around accusations of infidelity, every time he left the house. It's textbook Jay to take that as a cue to get hammered and start sleeping around. A perverse kind of talent, almost, that lets him appeal to Tim's care for him and his sense of self-flagellation all at the same time. Two for the price of one. Tim can see at all clearly now, like the road ahead after the wipers sweep the rain to the sides of his vision. Does Jay do it on purpose, or have their fuck-ups become finely tuned to each other over time?

If the same person can bring out the very best and very worst in you, where do you go from there?

_"Can we climb this mountain? I don't know_

_Higher now than ever before us"_

The radio's on. It's a fairly run of the mill alternative-in-the-loosest-sense-of-the-word rock song that's probably meant to be uplifting. Picking up a handful of CDs to choose from is but one part of the morning routine he was too muddled for today. At least it has a decent driving rhythm, just to put as much distance between him and that dreadful shift as possible. The thought of driving and driving and leaving Jay in the grave he's digging for himself is in a stage of looking both ways before it decides to cross his mind. He keeps his gaze on the road in front of him and tries to remember what being alone with his childhood torments felt like. Yes, perhaps they're dependent to an unhealthy degree on one another, but Jesus Christ, what choice did they have? For the longest time they had no-one else, and now they both need a hand to hold while trying to orient themselves in all this new open space.

_"We're burning down the highway skyline_

_On the back of a hurricane_

_That started turning when you were young"_

And with that Tim decides he's on the wrong station.

 _Why now?_ Why, when they're in a place of relative stability and security, are the wheels falling off? It doesn't make _sense_. For his first days back from the hospital Jay had still wanted a camera on himself at all times. It took two weeks of footage revealing nothing more alarming than Brian stealing the last of the Ben and Jerry's to convince him continued filming was unnecessary. And for a while after, everything was kind of okay. They apologised for the tapes and the knives and the lies, then they woke up and fell asleep together and Jay was gracious and about as happy as could be expected in between. High on the immediate aftermath, in retrospect. Until Tim left for work and reality came crashing down around them. Now he only speaks in soundbites; _'not sure', 'not now', 'I can't', 'fuck you'_.

If nothing else it's given Tim a new and grudging sympathy for every doctor he wouldn't co-operate with. Imagine showing them all, numberless across the years, how he'd ended up the more well-balanced of the two. Not that there's any joy in the telling. More frightening to him is the way he keeps thinking back to the beginning, those few months in their college town, before they found Alex's old house and everything went to hell. Warm days and long nights together. Instances few and far between where he even stopped looking over his shoulder, though never for more than a minute.

The cascade pouring over the windows clears, long enough for Tim to spot the turning home. If the happiest time of his life involved going on the run from a murderous college friend and his spooky new pal, what exactly does that say about the rest of it?

_"You say go slow, I fall behind_

_The second hand unwinds_

_If you're lost you can look and you will find me_

_Time aft-"_

_Wrong station_. He skips again and grits his teeth in the face of the bouncy piano line he's met with - all sunshine and jollity in an in-your-face way that makes him want to go out and rob people just to redress the balance. It's the kind of tune Brian would whistle in the morning to gloat about how much better equipped for the world he is. Brian, who's acting as relationship councillor now, adding that to his never-ending list of talents. But it's easier to snipe than it is to consider that your target may have a point. There's always been a measure of push and pull between himself and Jay, and the pull is at a pretty low ebb right now. Brian's wrong on some counts; it's not that Jay doesn't care about other people, it's more that he can't quite make the connection between himself and anyone else and realise his words and actions have an impact on them. Like he can't even consider himself important enough.

He still has feelings for Jay, the real Jay, wherever he's gone. Enough that it makes him sick to see they don't seem to be returned anymore. _Let's be real_. He's been with someone else. He's threatened Tim with injury on more than one occasion - however much of it can be chalked up to the killer combination of paranoia and alcohol, the danger was there. And it's dawning on him how little he really knows about Jay and what he did before all this. Jay's breakdown, the threats, the violence; is it a manifestation of trauma that's eclipsed the true character Tim loves, or is it something he's carried all along and kept hidden well?

_"No, I don't listen to the guys who say_

_That you're bad for me and I should turn you away_

_'Cause they don't know about -"_

_Wrong station._ Or maybe he's doing Jay a disservice with that. Jay, who only fell in over his head going through old tapes because he cared that someone put time and effort into them. Calling out to Alex even as he raised the gun, trying to calm the storm, right until the last. For four years he, alone, stood up again and again to something that outmatched him, something he couldn't begin to understand - and the same could be said of the emotional nadir he finds himself in now. That's _strong_ \- Tim sees it, even if Jay doesn't – and no person can be expected to keep it up forever. He couldn't let questions go unanswered and he couldn't stop _caring_ so fucking much. He never gives up on anyone. Except himself, apparently. Is all of the drama just fallout?

_"We found love in a hopeless place"_

Tim switches the radio off. Even the burst of static at the finish stirs things he'd rather forget - as if finding personal significance in the top forty garbage the radio is churning out wasn't bad enough. Yet more delightful is the discovery that he's missed the turning to his own house. If it buys him more time away from whatever confrontation is waiting for him, he pays for it with a few more minutes of anxiety over the form said confrontation will take. A mind that could've been put to better use counting stock has spent hours envisioning increasingly bleak homecomings, usually involving household debris and pools of blood and discarded pill bottles Why can't life have a pause button? A little window of time where he doesn't have to fear his own shadow or worry about what's waiting for him in his broken home.

When he pulls into the drive most of the street has lights on inside, even though what's to be seen of the sun behind heavy clouds has only just started to slip. Stepping out of the car Tim finds himself unwilling participant in an impromptu wet T-shirt contest, lacking a jacket because the weather can't make up its mind lately. He's fighting with the wind that whips around the house to make it to the door, and he can only pray it's the worst he'll see tonight. "It's never as bad as you think it's going to be" - another favourite stock phrase of therapists that turns out to be infuriatingly true a lot of the time. Tim places one palm flat on the door and tries to breathe. He counts to three and opens the door. There's no way for whatever awaits him to be worse than his imagination.

Only it is.

Brian's whistling.

Some old-time rock and roll song is blasting from the radio and Brian's stood in the kitchen enshrined by pots and pans, swathed in billowing steam like a tone-deaf and uncharacteristically upbeat Dracula. The floor is still covered by the CD mosaic, but the hubbub in the kitchen could've come straight from the happy homes down the road.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like? I'm making food that has actual nutrients in it. Protein, stuff like that."

Tim laughs, longer and more loudly than the remark deserved, but it feels like a weight lifting from his chest. From what he can see there's something roasting in the oven and green things in pans on the stove. "Is he...?" He nods his head in the direction of the bedroom.

Brian shrugs, and comes perilously close to overturning the pan of carrots in his hand. "Haven't heard a thing from him, apart from the bathroom door going a couple of times."

No news is good news, hopefully. There's another stab of guilt when Tim thinks of Jay left alone all day; _good_ , says half of him. He's made his bed and he can damn well lie in it... except it's meant to be _their_ bed and Tim surely helped make it, even if he's the only one bothering to get out of it in the morning. He knuckles his forehead and motions for Brian to move. Aspirin is needed before he attempts to lure Jay out. He leans over the sink to open a window and pours himself a glass of water.

"You really didn't have to..." he says, gesturing at the meal. It's by far the most culinary activity this house has ever seen, aside from cookery shows left on the TV for background ambience. Tim's having a good day if he can heat up a ready-made pizza without getting bored and leaving it to burn, so watching Brian flit between different pans on different heats is almost like seeing a mad scientist at work amidst all the steam and metal, with most of the equipment just as foreign to him. "You even bought extra cooking stuff?"

"No, they're all yours. I dug them out from the back of the cupboard, you know, behind all the packets of supposedly edible plastic you keep in there."

Tim swallows the pill and admires the array of kitchenware before him - about three times as much as he thought he had. He lifts the handle of one unused frying pan, turning it over a couple of times. "Cool."

Brian shoots him one of those I-don't-understand-how-you're-still-alive looks and turns away to fiddle with something on the oven. Sat on the counter, also, is a cocktail shaker and a pair of shutter shades. Tim's guessing those _weren't_ found at the back of the closet. He can't fault Brian's sense for picking out essentials, and with _his_ housekeeping money, no less.

"So the three of us, we're going to sit down, we're going to have a meal, be civil, and we're going to talk. I feel like you're both being ridiculous beyond words, but let's try it."

So it's bribery bubbling away on the stove. Fair enough. Only Tim has visions of the fruits of Brian's labours ending up plastered all over the walls above a growing collection of ceramic fragments. Jay's become emotionally invested in the idea that he doesn't need any help, and trying to convince him otherwise is just something Tim does out of spite to insult his competence. He's in an infuriating limbo where his lifestyle and behaviour aren't quite dangerous to the point where he'll warrant sectioning, but sunk deep enough that there's no way to convince him he needs help, deserves help. It's nice to think there's one particular combination of words so potent, so precise, it could weave its way around all his defense mechanisms and make him _see_. But words never have and never will be on Tim's side.

He looks at Brian, in his element with too much to do.

"You deserve better than this."

"And you deserve for something nice to happen to you, for once. Go fetch Mr. Hyde in there and we'll see what we all have to say, okay? It'll be done in about twenty minutes?"

Tim leaves Brian to his culinary endeavours and his endless optimism, singing _"I'm gonna take my problem to the United Nations"_ to himself. The light's off in the bedroom, but he can hear something shifting against the wall. _Just be calm. Be_ nice.

"Jay?"

Silence. He knocks a couple of times and opens the door. Jay is huddled on the floor in the same thin cotton top and shorts he wore yesterday, so small and so alone all thoughts of leaving him turn to dust and blow away. His hand reaches for the light, but he stops, Jay's inevitable hangover in mind. The evening's gentle luminescence is more private. With the swaying trees by the window dappling the first light of the moon they could be sat in some underwater grotto, nothing around them but the waves.

"Can I sit down?"

The heap on the floor shrugs. "It's your house, like you're always reminding me."

Tim bites back the selection of sarcastic responses that suggest themselves. Jay's speaking in full sentences. He's demonstrating some semblance of personality again. This is good. He slides halfway down the wall next to Jay, who's sat with his arms wrapped around his knees, back pressed into the wall, rigid enough to make the offer of any sign of affection impossible. Bypassing the question of whether or not Jay's done that on purpose he shifts to the bed as though it'll offer some vantage point while he tries to think of something to say.

"Why are you sitting in the dark?"

Jay lifts his head like he's only just noticing the light has bled out of the world outside.

"Is your head okay?"

"It's _fine_." He has this emphatic _fine_ down to an art now, like it's a password that works every time whether it's his drinking or his diet or his probable hallucinations being called into question. Of course the quick-fire choler demonstrates that he's clearly _not_ fine and it's all Tim can do not to throw the lights on and hurl him out of the room. Anything to get a reaction and not this brick wall of indifference. He's not even _trying_.

"Can I get you anything?"

Jay doesn't seem to consider the question worthy of response. Is this really the same person - caring, resolute, endlessly inquisitive - he fell in love with less than a year ago? Tim lights up, exhaled smoke the only movement but for the shadows of the trees lashing in the gale. A sense of empty wasted time, like waiting at a red light, starts to build, but getting angry is the last thing Jay needs right now. Tim's hurt and there'll be a time for them to work through that, but not now. Not with Brian waiting with dinner, and backup if needed.

"You're wanted in the living room, anyway. Brian's spent all afternoon cooking for us - that'll be good, right? Vitamins and stuff? We've got a minute if you want to just put some clothes on and come -"

"I'm not hungry."

"When was the last time you ate anything?"

Jay shrugs.

"You've got to eat..." he starts, then stops. Captain Obvious is never much of a tactician. At least Jay is sober – for all he speaks like it's a great effort and without so much as a hint of enthusiasm, and he's doing Tim a favour just by opening his mouth, he's not slurring. One less worry. Tim hasn't eaten all day himself, and the smell of meat wafting through the whole house is making the abyss in his stomach yawn and groan. "I just wish you'd tell me what was wrong so I can do something."

"I'm not aproject for you to work on." His voice is muffled behind his arm. He's staring right ahead, trying to focus on something Tim's oblivious to.

"I know. I'm sorry, Jay. I'm just trying to understand how you're feeling, and if you won't come out and say it..."

He's quiet for a long time, and when he speaks again his voice cracks, like the words are sticking. "I feel like I'm stood on the edge of a cliff. I'm looking at the sea.”

The phrase has terrifying implications that force Tim's hand to Jay's. He doesn't respond, but he doesn't shake him off, either. “Go – go on.”

He props his head on the arm that's draped over his knees to speak, with a searching look, like for a moment he's really there over the water. “I'm trying to see something on the horizon but I don't know what. All I can see is the sea. And the whole time I'm stood there the ground's crumbling, and I have to move, but I don't know where."

"How... literary of you." _I guess you could see anything staring at these walls long enough_. It happened in his hospital room, with nothing to look at but the cracks in the paintwork. Jay's lip trembles - the greatest show of emotion he's seen from him tonight - and he knows he has to say something. Not so long ago he'd have thought nothing of kissing it away, but the hunched shoulders tell him no.

"I've never seen the sea. Maybe we could do that, both of us, when you're feeling better?" It's trite and it's dripping with sugary patronising that feels sickly in his mouth as he says it, but it's all that's coming; just to make him remember there's a world beyond this room.

"When I'm feeling better." There's a pinch of hope as Jay tilts his head. "I'd like that."

"Come and eat with us. Please."

He shakes his head.

"Would it make any difference if I'd cooked it?"

Jay has his mouth trapped behind his folded arms again, but Tim knows from the narrowing of his eyes that he's suppressing a smile. "If you cooked it, it'd be poisonous."

"Thanks, Jay. Hey, you're shaking."

"I'm cold."

"Then why don't you get up off the floor and come here?"

It comes out without thought and more forcefully than he meant – what if it's too much too soon? Jay moves a leg, but only to sit cross-legged and slumped against the wall instead.

"You can insult me but you can't sit with me?"

"Sorry."

"Jay, I'm joking."

There's fidgeting that Tim hopes is indecision, so he slides off the bed onto his knees in front of Jay. The T-shirt looks absurdly oversized on his whittled frame, and the mottling of bruises he's acquired stand out to make him look even more pale. _Fragile_ is the word that springs to mind, and not for the first time. Again he's wondering just how much Jay kept under the surface, even while coming for him with a knife. It's like his skin has broken now; literally and metaphorically.

He's still Jay with Jay's eyes and lips, and Tim's still drawn to him. He wasn't at first. Jay's kind of small and inconspicuous and usually has something on his head or in his face to excuse him from eye contact. He's not conventionally attractive. He's also a guy, which was a stumbling block for a long time in a way that seems nonsensical now. _Implying that anything about us makes sense_. It's little things he noticed that turned it around. That imperceptible line Jay's awkwardness crosses into something endearing, like the way he always looks at the ground on the odd occasion he smiles or when his tongue trips on his words because finding the right ones means so much to him. Under pressure it's as loosely linked as a daisy chain right now.

Jay called him brave once, but Jay is the one who's been braver in exploring their relationship, putting aside pointless gender roles, all for him. Not that he'd try to seduce him in this state, though the thought has flashed in his mind, and precipitated a pang of self-loathing for merely having the idea. Just to breach the gap between them he lifts Jay's arms from his knees and raises his head with one finger. Firm but gentle. He's close enough to sense the toothpaste on Jay's breath - like he did the first night they were together. If he's brushing his teeth, that's a good sign. Unless he's been sick and tried to mask it. In the time it takes to start worrying, Jay moves his head away. Tim reaches around to stroke his cheek.

"No?"

Jay still won't meet his eyes. "If you want."

Tim shakes his head. It's meant humorously but Jay starts quaking, and a tiny vowel sound escapes his mouth. Tim leans over to wind an arm around him, awkward posture be damned, but he's pushed away and Jay curls further into himself, head between his knees like he's about to faint, not such a far-fetched possibility given exactly how much he's been taking care of himself lately.

"I think I need to be alone right now."

"I can't do that, Jay. I'm too scared for you, can't you see that? Can't you think of anything anyone could do to help you instead?"

"I don't think there's anything anyone can do for me now."

"I hate seeing you like this."

"Poor you." He starts pulling at a loose thread on his sleeve. There's _nothing_ in his voice. A new kind of contempt, maybe. The sonogram would come up totally flat trying to find life in it.

"I love you, Jay."

He drops the string he's fiddling with and _flinches._ Raised eyebrows say it all; _do you_?

"You seemed okay when you first came out of hospital. I know I'm not very bright, but I just don't see what's changed."

Jay sighs like Tim doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as him. "Just because I didn't let you fuck me this week. I'm _fine_."

What Jay doesn't realise is quite how informative his refractions and silences can be. Drawing the empty space around an object until the picture takes shape. He's _fine_ and it's Tim's ego and libido causing problems for all of them. Tim doesn't know if it's said on purpose to hurt him and deflect his attention from the real problem, or if Jay's perception is so out of order he truly believes that's what Tim's refusal not to let him drink himself to death is all about. He doesn't know which frightens him the most, either.

But of all the things to unpack in that sentence, it's _let you_ that resonates the most in Tim's mind. Turning every intimate experience he thought they'd shared into a favour at Jay's expense in only two syllables. It's hard to conceive of a colder quip than one issued from the chapped lips of a treed and desperate lover.

Swallowing both his pride and the lump that's forming in his throat, Tim tightens his grip on Jay's hand and tries to find his eyes under a drawn curtain of lank hair. "Look... come and eat with us. _Please_. You might not feel so tired, and Brian's gone to a lot of trouble -" and then he's hearing himself, truly, for the first time, and he crumples his face in his hands as tears spring to his eyes. "I'm sorry, Jay. I'm doing everything that's been done to me." Shouting all the slurs under the sun, all of those verbal bullets he's had fired at him. Guilt trips, fatuous promises about positive thinking - the works. “I'm just so afraid of the way we're talking to each other. And then last night -"

"I'll pay for it. It's okay."

"Jay... Okay, one, _how_ are you going to pay for it? Second, that's not the point!"

"I'll get a job to for it, I will, I just..."

He's out of excuses. It's been weeks, after all. Tim counts to three and lets the anger cool before he replies. "I know I'm being a dick and I'm making this all about me, but you're not giving me much to go on other than what I feel about this. What I feel about _you_. I wanted us to live together and – no. I wanted you to feel happy and safe here.”

Jay laughs. A bark of 'I can't believe what you just said to me'.

“But you clearly don't and I'd do _anything_ I could to change that. You're not eating, you only sleep when you drink yourself into it, and you've... I have to believe you weren't trying to hurt me.” Words come spilling out, everything he told himself he'd save for later, but Jay isn't giving him enough to hold up the bars. It's a choice between word soup and lashing out. "I don't think any less of you now. I think you're incredible to go through what you have and I don't tell you that enough, and maybe that's why you... didn't come home the other night. You really hurt me. I know you're a person and I know I can't put any kind of claim on you, it's your body and all, but it still hurts. And I guess it will until I know what I did wrong."

It's phrased more harshly than he would've liked, but he can't help it. Visions of a naked body he knows every inch of in the arms of some stranger, all while Tim was sat at home staring at the clock and tearing his hair out, deluge in his mind. His breathing's gone shallow. They've done nothing more than kiss since that night, and it's not for Tim's lack of trying. The incident coupled with Jay's tense shoulders every time he comes near is adding up to conclusions that make him feel like the pit of his stomach's about to fall in.

"Was it me? Did I do something wrong? I'll never touch you again if that's what you want."

"I don't know what I want." He says it breathlessly, like Tim's asked an outlandish question about the air speed velocity of unladen swallows or fucking something. "Whatever I did, I didn't have you in mind, okay?"

 _You've made not having me in mind abundantly clear_. "Look, whatever happens between us, I want you to know that I'm not going to kick you out or anything. I still want to be your... your friend, if I can. It's not like there's many people who are going to understand about this stuff, and even if we don't talk about it, it's... Jay?"

His shoulders started bouncing and now he's making these little choked sounds, almost like clucking, with tear tracks on his face. "Why would you say that?"

"Say what? Jay, what's wrong?"

"It's not -" and then he gives way to a sobbing, howling fit. The dam's been threatening to burst the whole time he's been in here, and it's like all his restraints have fallen away. "It's what's _right_!"

"Well, that makes total sense." And Tim wants to smack his head against the wall. _Hey, Jay, I know you're completely beside yourself right now and probably traumatised enough that your own thoughts aren't making a whole lot of sense to you, but why don't you just pull yourself back together and make a cohesive sentence just for me_? It's going worse than he could've imagined. He leans in again to put his arms around Jay, and he yelps. The noise coming out of him isn't even human as he turns away to lie on his side.

"Please just leave me."

"Throwing me out of my own room. Okay. Maybe I'll just go and clean up the bomb site you made of _my_ living room."

Jay only watches as Tim rises from his knees, like it's all confirmation of something he already knew. Tim has _never_ been like this. If _he_ can keep hope alive and keep trying his best, then so can Jay. It's this passive resignation to being a victim of himself that he can't get around. Right now he'd rather Jay went back to hurling everything in sight at him. At least he'd know he was still fighting. He's tried being reasonable, he's tried seeing this from the closest approximation of Jay's distorted side of the fence he can find, and for what? He's lost count of the hours waiting by Jay's bed after the encounter at Alex's house, after he was shot, when he didn't come home. He walked _quite literally into hell and back_ for someone who won't even look at him when he's spoken to. Now he's waiting hand on foot on him for... what?

 _I don't hate myself enough to put up with this_.

"Go ahead and starve, then. See if I care." He throws open the door and storms out, even as tracks of care are running down his face and the hair on his arms is stood on end with care. It's not like he did all of those things expecting Jay to feel indebted to him. But something resembling acknowledgement would be nice. He works so hard, walks on fucking eggshells... For the longest time he's wanted to be the friend to Jay that he never had at his worst, but they're not the same at all. And he's done being appreciated only when he walks away.

There's a plaintive croak of his name back in the distance, and it's possible to pinpoint the exact moment Jay realises just how cold and lonely the hole he's dug for himself is going to be. Well, Tim clearly can't pull him out, and he's certainly not joining him down there. He's been there before, feeling you're under the ground already, choking on emotion every bit as oppressive as six feet of soil on top of you. But by God he knows better than anyone that you can turn it around if you're willing to look your past in the eye. If Jay has learned nothing else from the last four years, it should be that there aren't any dashing heroes, no cavalry coming for him. There's only people placed against something bigger than them but doing their best anyway.

Tim is going to have a cigarette, and then he's going to sit down and enjoy his dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs on the radio: [one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRps78mdzzE), [two](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PqhOrgk11A), [three](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfRI1XjDFCU), [four](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqaGZYDGcUw). In which my inner music snob suffers the same embarrassment as Tim at finding fic-related meaning in songs that don't comply with my ultra-hip image. Brian was singing [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZZD8ckwLJA), which is acceptable.


	8. Coda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's all up there in the tags, but just in case, I want to reiterate that the following chapter has the potential to be extremely triggering for things like depression, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. In the interest of avoiding spoilers I've included a more detailed description at the bottom, so if any of the above might apply to you, I suggest you check it first. Take care of yourselves.

_And I'm shamed that it should be_  
 _Where she stood was a boy just like me_  
 _I love you, baby - I don't love you at all_  
 _Like the back of my hand I never knew you at all_  
 _And you'll always walk tall_  
 _Did I hear you call?_  
 _... Did I hear you call?_  
\- These Immortal Souls

Jay throws his head back against the wall.  Sharp, white-hot pain enlivens his brain.  Once the stars in his eyes have subsided it's as if a few extraneous thoughts have been knocked from his head, letting him focus again.  He has to get to the window.  The blind is still open a fraction, inviting faces to look in, and the weather-beaten trees cast shadows in scattered, unpredictable patterns over the walls.  Every movement is a potential enemy and there'll be no rest without the shield of fabric, but the window is across the room and so far away.

Tim's been saying words to him, most of the meaning lost in the struggle to order his ideas, to keep one word and then another in mind to put it all together.  He can more or less manage to mumble a response and keep some level of communication going, but conversation moves too fast for him.  A screen of _keep breathing, in and out, just live, stay there_ comes down, and the act of respiring without letting his mouth dissolve into a scream takes up too much of his brain to process what's being said.

His whole head is throbbing with an ache to the beat of whoever's talking in the other room.  It's just alien noise and by the time he manage to pieces together anything Tim said, he's had time to second-guess the motivation behind it.  He's trying to be nice only to get in Jay's pants.  Or he's planning something with Brian now that Jay is in their clutches with nowhere else to turn.

On some level he's aware that, yes, he's being ridiculous.  Which doesn't make what he feels less real, or make it easier to explain to Tim that when he reaches out a hand to stroke his face, he sees the hand of that _thing_ snaking toward him as it tilts its head and everything turns black.  Or, at best, he sees Tim and he sees his own reflection and is taken aback by a self-loathing so complete it stuns him, like falling through ice into a frozen lake, needling his whole body.

Company is a double-edged sword right now.  Something about being around other people only augments this sense that Jay is alone and walking through projections of ghosts.  But being alone is worse.  If only he still had a camera.  The room, any room, feels cavernous and alien without it, and there are too many thing that could happen while he's not looking, or that he wouldn't remember.  There are hours he's blacked out already.  Tim says that can happen if you're depressed, but how can he be so fucking casual about it, so sure that it's over, knowing what memory loss has meant to them in the past?

Having no hope would be easier.  It's the principle Tim didn't seem to grasp at all when Jay confronted him about the tape he tried to hide.  Jay has blood on his hands, and if his penance was to be a lifetime of horrors haunting his dreams and waking hours giving scope for nothing but regret and, at best, boredom, he could do it.  After all, such would be the very least he deserves.  The flashes of light that slash through the darkness are what throw everything off-balance.  Mostly Tim.  To think he'd found a lover who stood up to his childhood fear and walked into death for him.  Their nights together on the road fade into soft focus, blurring with all the other-worldly and flowing quality of silk painting.  The peeling paint and asphalt of their immediate surroundings fading under kisses soft as the fall of blossom; life in the mercurial hours that belong to neither night nor morning, when nothing is real and all bets are off.

When did they went from stolen fondling while the coffee brewed and Brian wasn't looking to hugging themselves and hunching over every time they try to talk?  The constant sniping at each other is nothing new, but the point of contact is.  If you find someone as awkward and inward-looking as you are it can be a major mark of trust to mock one another's awkwardness - a relief from trying to excuse it all the time.  But to truly know someone is to know all their weak spots, leave yourself vulnerable through letting down the exoskeleton of introversion, and the sorest points are all they're aiming for now.

But out of everything Tim said that's been lost in the ether, one point got though clearly enough; _I still want to be your_ friend.  If any of Jay's feelings were true, he should be happy that Tim can move on to someone who deserves him, right?  It's an idea that he loved, the illusion that Jay is some self-sacrificing hero who never gives up rather than a waste of space with nothing better to do.

What do you do when someone claims to love you for the things you hate most in yourself?  When, by twisting the black and rotten parts of you into illusions of virtue, they've fallen head over heels for a veneer of dashed hopes and misplaced futures?  Jay wasn't deliberately deceptive, he just presented himself, but he's enough of a dull blank slate Tim could've projected what he liked onto him.  And he sees Tim throwing a crooked smile at this lie, wrapping his arms around it, calling for the lie by the name given to the body that carries it.

 _I tried not to love you.  I really tried_.

He knocks his head again, the back of his skull bruised and tender, and this time the clock above him falls down and strikes his forehead.  There's a Damoclesian metaphor in there somewhere, but he's not the one to find it.  He curses and throws it to the side, pondering but briefly why additional pain is a problem after what he's just done.  Cooking smells permeate the whole house and it's turning his stomach, as if the rattle of pots and pans all afternoon wasn't enough.  Tim and Brian are talking down the hall and their voices have been rising in increments for the last few minutes.

"Brian, I _don't know_.  It's like he wants to finish it, but he's too much of a fucking coward so he's seeing how far he can push me before I leave him."

"Have you thought that maybe, just maybe, it's for the best, at this point?  I know you love him.  He's your friend.  But if you're trying to fool yourself you're in -"

"What would you know about it?  Have you ever even been with the same person for more than a couple months?"

"I haven't dated since I was college age!  You know that!"

"My point still stands."

"You know, I don't need to be an expert to see that this relationship is bad for you.  _Both_ of you.  Kind of like I don't need to be a shrink to see that he needs help."

"Oh, do you think?"

"Can you just drop the front for five minutes here?  We've both got enough problems of our own, and even if we didn't, what's going on with him is way beyond what we can deal with.  You need to get him to a doctor."

"Sure, great, only what are we meant to say is wrong with him?"

"He's not eating, he's drinking too much, he hardly gets out of bed - it seems pretty obvious to me."

"Yeah, and any treatment for that is useless if they don't try to get into his head."

"Rather them than me.  They'll know what they're doing."

"I know.  I'm _with you_ on this.  But you can't get through any kind of therapy by lying and if we tell the truth, either they don't believe us and he'll be turned away for pulling some kind of prank, or they believe _we believe_ what we're saying and we all end up institutionalised.  We need a plan."

"Sounded like you thought it was a good idea before."

"I know.  I thought maybe if he had something to help him sleep, he'd be able to think clearly again, but -"

Tim falls short of explaining why he thinks sleeping pills aren't such a good idea.  Like he wouldn't just try something else if it ever came to that.  Would sleeping and never waking up be so bad?  _Isn't it my choice_?  They'd put down a dog when it was old and tired.

"You don't develop an alcohol dependence in the space of a couple of months.  You're overreacting."  Tim's still sulking – he can tell by the guttural tone to his voice.

Brian laughs.  "Okay, great, let's just sit and wait for that to happen before we do anything."  The house falls silent apart from some metal on metal cooking sounds, then he deadpans; "You must really care about him."

"How am I supposed to know what to feel about it?"

"Why do you always have to make everything about you?"

"On what planet is everything about me, Brian?  If you think I'm actually happy about having to work every hour God sends to take care of you two freeloaders -"

"Oh, no.  You do _not_ put me in a box with him!  I can't believe you!  I've been running up and down this town trying to find a job - like that interview I had today, which _by the way_ went really well, thank you so much for asking, and he just -"

Jay doesn't want to hear any more.  Tim and Brian aren't supposed to fight over anything more important than video games.  Should he feel something like guilt for running a wedge between them?  It's not like he ever _asked_ them to turn him into their new multiplayer campaign and start fighting over his future.  While it's been a long time since Jay's path felt any but inexorable, the idea of punching one or both of them until they stay out is looking pretty good right now.  If Jay weren't so puny and his attempt at a right hook more likely to floor them with laughter, there'd be nothing to stop him.

Tim thinks he knows everything because his early life was hard and Brian thinks he knows everything because he got good grades in school.  As if either of them could ever imagine what's happening to Jay.  To go through life with nothing medically wrong with him, just this general sense that he's unwanted, defective, _other_ , and that's why he can't meet anyone's eye and keep them from shying away from him.  That he's simply not very good at being a person, though God knows he tried.  He's always in the way, always floundering and fumbling when everyone around him strides with purpose, pride.

Of course Tim wouldn't come when he called.  Why should he?  He's tired of this, but he could never be remotely near as tired of it as Jay.  There's an odd kind of power to knowing you hate yourself more than anyone else ever will.  Nothing can touch him down here.  Tim's frustration at his general lack of activity is understandable, but it's assuredly worse for Jay, thank you very much.

Jay is a parasite, a cancer, but he doesn't know how to be anything else.  He traces one finger over the bones and veins sticking up tumescent beneath the thin veil of skin on the other hand.  He can see his own blood coursing through him.  Life.  Sometimes sadness rushes on him in such a way that he can't understand how one body can physically hold so much pain and he's got to be about to have an aneurysm right there.  Brian said panic attacks, but isn't it logical after everything he's seen and done?  Not now, though.  He's too empty for that, words echoing inside of him; _waste of space, waste of time, time, time_.

There's blood on Jay's hands, and he didn't deserve to survive, but he did.  It's on him now to do something to make the sparing of his life a worthy turnout, and he feels that weight pressing into him as more and more days just fall away like so many dead leaves.  But where can he go from here? 

The others throw this route and that route out as suggestions but there's always a good reason why he can't.  What's he meant to put on a resume under 'skills'?  _Not thinking things through, lacking logic, fucking up, causing trainwrecks in everyone's lives_.  So on they go.  He used to like writing, why not turn back to that, they said.  Great, let's all just sit down and wait for the words to materialise while all the thoughts his head shapes are about as lucid as alphabet spaghetti right now.

Tim cultivated a lot of enthusiasm for the world while he was hidden away in hospital, boundless curiosity for what lay beyond the walls of that cloistered existence.  Even when the real world disappointed him so much he never seems to stop hoping for something better, even though he doesn't say or even realise it – that's why he picks up more CDs than he has time to listen to and always leaves the TV on in the background when it's something he hasn't seen before.  To Jay, being alive is simply not all that.  He's done school.  He's done real work and he's tried the creative side; he's had friends, he's fallen in love or the closest he's ever likely to get to it, and now even that hasn't worked he's struggling to find reasons to stick around for more variations on a dull and disappointing theme.

So he's ungrateful because Tim saved him however many times and all he can do is sit and stare at the walls.  And it makes him want to laugh until he's crying again, because _what was Tim expecting_?  It was all he did before, even when the whole world outside didn't look like an endless maze for horrors to him.  Or the idea that somehow their relationship should be enough – like having a boyfriend negates everything else.  Tim is a petulant man-child and throwing his new toy out of the pram now it's no longer doing what it says on the box.

 _It's all you ever were to him_.  Because Jay is cheap, and he was _there_ , and Tim maybe fooled himself there was more to it than desperation so he had something to cling to, to help him feel normal, whatever.  Truth is, they lasted one night in a motel before they were in bed together.  One night.  _Cheap , cheap, cheap_.

And what he arrives at is not the usual self-deprecation because he's done his share of that, all the "You're so amazing, why would you even look twice at someone as awkward and useless as me?".  The answer is obvious; it's because there was no-one else, and Tim doesn't always feel so great about himself either.  Being with him used to inspire this jaw-dropping awe, something for Jay to smile about when the rest of his luck seemed to run out.  Now it's guilt, even more of it, dragging him down until he's anchored in this shallow bay.  And to think he threw even the illusion of a relationship away for a few minutes with some stranger whose name and face he'll never know.

At least, his memories of that night only come to a sum total of a few minutes.  He drank until he couldn't think, he knows that much, and the other guy had a great body he was totally unreserved in showing off.  Tim still turns away from him to undress, even though Jay must have caressed, kissed or curled his tongue over every inch of his body by now.  _Why_?  It's some failing of Jay's as a lover if he can't find anything to say or do to make him see how beautiful he is.  So this stranger's confidence was jarring, then he was lying on his front being ground into an old and unrelenting mattress, and it hurt, it _burned_ , so Jay got to his feet at some point and the guy looked worried and asked about the scars on his stomach in the nicest way possible, and Jay's gotten pretty good at convincing people he's not _that_ drunk and didn't give any indication he was until he threw up on the floor, and before he knew it he was outside in the rain in only his boxers with no money for a ride home and no idea where he was.

The guy chased after him until he screamed for help, but he only wanted to know what was wrong, check he hadn't hurt him, could he at least call a cab?  He was one of the decent ones, and that's Jay's reserve of good luck gone; otherwise the whole night could've ended so much worse than it had, though the finale with Tim picking him up and piecing it all together in one wet-eyed look was bad enough.

When Tim does it, he's gentle and attentive in a way Jay doesn't deserve.  Memories - Tim moaning next to his ear, Tim's thick head of gleaming hair moving down between his legs, the same hair brushing soft as silk along his spine when Tim scaled up on him from behind - that once set off a craving like he'd never known put a chill in him now, and he turns his mind away like his eyes from the sight of blood.  Tim's frustration is palpable in his quick temper and skittering hands, and Jay would like nothing more than to relieve him of it in their usual way, but not like this.  He wants it until he remembers himself, his body and all the places he's taken it.

It's not Tim - not that Tim, who's the centre of the universe and therefore at fault for everything, would believe it.  It's Jay's involvement in the process that makes his enthusiasm die on him.  He is a disgusting person and the outside - withering and colourless - only reflects what lies beneath.  He's stripped to the bone with nowhere to hide.  There is no quadrant for a love partner in which Tim couldn't do better, and really, it's just unfair of Jay to keep him shackled to this web they've spun together.

 _But then_...  Life's not valuable inherently, not when you're living with intolerable pain.  Surviving for the sake of surviving isn't an achievement no matter what they try to tell you.  Is it not sometimes stronger and wiser to admit defeat and let yourself go?  Jay is done _surviving,_ just _existing_ with nothing worth surviving _for._ But try telling that to Tim Double-You and all the lies he tells, to himself most of all.

Out of the blue he sees Jessica smiling, radiant above her plain clothes and out from  behind her messy hair, and it's _sick_ , the injustice of the world that she should have crossed his path when it so easily could've happened any number of other ways.  Hatred avalanches onto him.  Tim was _there_ , whatever protestations he makes.  Jay starts to shake, just as he did when he first put himself through that hidden tape, the room lit by only the eerie green glow of the night vision and his whole world the sound of her screaming through his headphones.  And Tim had something to do with it.

 _But he also watched and edited film of you being shot because he knew it's what you'd have wanted_.

So says the threads of a nice person left at the back of Jay's brain, the one who hugged it out with Tim when he came out of hospital.  And he's lashing out because he knows who's really to blame.  There's blood on his hands.  A woman he never even knew.  It's wrong that her life should amount to nothing more than something for him to antagonise himself over.  But why her and not him?  She was smart, she noticed things that went over his head, she was charming and attractive and just in a few seconds of speaking to her he'd worked out that she could've most likely done anything she wanted, while he's left alive and can't even get up off the floor.

Maybe there was never hope for any of them.  _I don't know_.  What he does know it that his stomach is threatening to erupt again, so he makes for the bathroom.  He slides the door handle downward by degrees, like the killer in _the Tell-Tale Heart_ , trying to mute the sound and draw as little attention to himself as possible.  The living room glows like the mouth of a cave with dim lamplight.  He can't see Tim and Brian, but he can hear them.

"And _I'm_ the one who didn't get a childhood because of what other people said were hallucinations!"

"You said yourself, you don't know for sure that they weren't."

"I'm never going to know either way, thanks for rubbing it in."

"Oh, spare me."

"My point is that unless we're careful - and any therapist worth their salt is going to know if we lie to them - he could end up committed when there's nothing wrong with him in that regard."

"Of course, you love him so much that you're just going to sit and let him self-destruct.  Or are you just afraid that he might realise there's other people in the world than you?"

_"Take that back!"_

_Don't they have anything better to talk about_?  No, it's all about what Jay needs and what Jay ought to do, never what Jay actually _wants_ even though he's the supposed focus of attention.  What is it that he wants?  To crawl under the ground and fucking cease existing.  To just leave.  _I want a drink_.

It'll have to be water for now.  His throat absorbs it like a desert so he pours a second, flinching when the glass chinks against the faucet.  The harsh glare of the bathroom light takes a moment of getting used to – it's gotten dark without him noticing.

Loath as he is to admit it, Brian's right about one thing - it's all about dependence with them.  It's like a curtain pulling back from this sham of a romance to show him that Tim only keeps him close for validation; that he could be to Jay the companion and comfort he wanted in his own darkest days, never mind what Jay wants.  Whatever healing elements there might have been to their relationship have taken on the nature of addiction and in the process exposed the lie for what it is.  This isn't tearing off a band-aid, quick and clean.  It's going to wither and die for a little while yet.  Grief's harder to pin and overcome when you're mourning something that never even existed.

Idly he thinks of his parents, and winces.  How can he go back to looking them in the eye again after everything he's done?  Better to leave them be, let them invent something about his fate so they can feel whole again and spare them the truth about his touch of death.  If he's learned one thing, it's that sometimes it's better not to know, much as moth to flame instinct says otherwise.

With his knees weakening under him, Jay lowers himself to sit on the edge of the bath.  Alex Kralie died years ago while shooting his student film.  That's what Tim and Brian tell themselves so they can sleep at night.  But it's easy for them.  They didn't see his face in the final moments in that dingy basement, they didn't see the tears and the wild-eyed, desperate, irrational but _utter_ will to live.  Jay doesn't hide from the past like they do.  He sees it all the time.  It's his burden, the price he pays for the freedom he doesn't deserve.

 _Blood on his hands_.  He keep saying it, seeing it.  He prods the thick blue line on his opposite arm.  His wrists are stalks, the artery pulsing under sallow skin, keeping his sorry life moving from one day to the next.  It wouldn't take a whole lot to just stop it.  Tim's razor gleams with incisive promise on the sink, shining amidst the soap scum and stray hairs accumulating there.

If Jay isn't a good person, and that's just the way it is, then the supposed guilt he'll manufacture is permissible.  More than that, once the crocodile tears ran out, he'd be doing Tim a favour.  He's been nothing but a burden since the day they met.  If there's no way to actually sacrifice himself to bring back someone worthy, at least preventing himself from inflicting any more collateral damage is one thing he can do.

Even now there's a voice in his head pleading with him.  _Are you really giving up after everything you've been through_?  So he cycles through all the ights he's spent alone and afraid - one last look around the house before he goes - and replies; _yeah, I am_.  It's nothing more than early retirement.

On this floor his knees have practically worn a groove in he rises and takes the razorblade from the edge of the sink.  They tell you all sorts to deter you – that there's a good chance of survival, that you could end up losing a hand or damaging your brain - like his brain isn't damaged enough - how you'll suddenly see that every problem that seemed so insurmountable is a molehill next to the fact that you're bleeding to death.  Whatever.  What they don't tell you how much it fucking _hurts_.  It hurts like all hell when he drags the blade parallel to the blue lines on his arm, and more so when he tenses the torn muscles to do the other wrist.  His skin barely breaks.  The line looks thin and dry by comparison so he makes a couple more incisions.  His hands are slippery and the _pain_ when he flexes muscles and tendons makes him bite his lip so the others won't hear, until he's practically sawing at his wrist and there's spatters of red to add to the pattern of the shower curtain.  Both his arms are on fire, so much that he drops the razor and stains the bath mat.  But it won't last long.

He pulls himself up to the sink to catch the drips and watches mesmerised as his blood pours away from him, circling the drain like it doesn't want to go.  There's no melancholy piano music drifting over the scene, no montage of shocked faces outside, only a wait for the fade to black.

So he waits.  He's tapping his foot and trying to recall what day it is today.

He always thought that if he ever arrived at this point it'd be in the aftermath of one crisis too many, that he'd reach a determined breaking point someone else could feel guilty about.  All he feels is a settling in his stomach, because he's had enough.  He's lived too long already and the idea will only keep toying with him.  Catalysts only exist in stories.  In reality, he's been slowly grinding to a halt for a long time.

The bathroom's too public a setting for this - either of them could stumble in at any minute.  Doesn't Tim have medication to take around this time, too?  Jay wraps his wrists in a towel to keep tidy and goes back into the bedroom.  There's a draft that hits him right away.  It's often cold at nights, in here.  Which wasn't all bad.  Not when they undressed together and pressed close under the blankets.  Alone now, he pulls the first thing he finds out of the laundry basket next to him and throws it around his shoulders.  It's Tim's red plaid shirt, the one he wears rolled to the elbows that looks so good on him.  Jay huddles into it like a blanket, and sits, and waits.

Is it possible to create a person who just can't function in the world?  To go through something that distances you to the point that there's no place for you.  Certainly what he went through after watching Alex's footage was only an instigating misfortune – what's consuming him now is a sickness that lay in wait already, since he was a child who didn't notice other children talking to him.  Now all this second-guessing and guilty verdicts on every unproven innocent he meets has taken on a life of its own.  Strange that caution he adopted for self-preservation has consumed him to the point where life is no longer worth living, but life is full of these cruel little ironies.

Like when you try to help and make everything worse.

And at least this way it's a definite choice he can't go back on.

One he can't regret.

In the corner of his eye, the whole towel's turned red, which is annoying.  Dark droplets running onto the floor already.  _Fuck_.  The carpets were here when Tim moved in and not getting his deposit money back is the last thing he needs to worry about right now.  Jay reaches for a box of tissues on the bedside table and dabs at his cuts, but the paper is sodden in seconds.  He hurls the useless scraps into the waste paper basket and tries to wipe some of the blood away with his hand.  His fingertips, digits to the knuckles, and finally his whole palm come away red and wet, and now he's sat in a growing crimson pool, and suddenly everything comes clear with a clarity like - and the aptness of it makes him laugh out loud - a camera coming into focus.  He's really done it.  Then his heart starts pounding, which makes the blood pour out of him even faster, so he breathes deeper, willing it to stay down.

What's he going to do about it?  Get out – _fuck_ \- it's too hot in here.  Fresh air will clear his head.  He throws himself to his feet with the aid of the bedside table, but his legs fall out from under him like a rug's been pulled and he tumbles over it instead.  He's broken the lamp and shards of bulb press into his side where he's sprawled awkwardly in the gap between table and wall.  He hurls himself up again and someone's in the doorway.  Dodging past Jay runs full pelt down the corridor, throwing himself against the front door like he's begging for sanctuary.

The handle seems to move away from his searching hand, and he's scrabbling around trying to keep up with it, scratching the wood.  He can't find his lungs to breathe.  All his useless faculties are running away from him, hands flailing and foreign.  When he finally has what feels like a firm grip on it, he pulls like it's the only way out and stumbles onto the lawn.  The world is spinning like a globe, the glow from houses and streetlights a whirlpool of luminescence like he's taken a seat on a fairground ride.  A sliver of a moon curls into a mocking Cheshire Cat grin above him, and the high wind knocks him right off his feet.  It's tearing his hair and putting a searing chill through all his bones.

He pulls the shirt around him tighter and he can smell Tim's cigarettes and his sweat and the cheap cologne he douses himself in now, stronger than the raw iron reek of blood, and for a moment it's like Tim is there with his arms around him.  Is he calling his name now?  No, it's a trick of the wind.  Stupid Tim Double-You and the stupid lies they wrapped each other up in.  At least he's free now.  They're both free.  Jay lifts, raised into the night sky until all about him is black and the lights around him are far below and far away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The text above is essentially a graphic depiction of a suicide attempt via wrist cutting, and the self-destructive, self-sabotaging thought patterns that lead up to it. There's also mentions of alcohol, self-harm, vomit, and a heavy dose of survivor's guilt. While I'm not at liberty to say how accurately or powerfully my own writing conveys these things, I feel it's best to let any of you reading go in prepared anyway.


	9. Interval

_Here I am with plenty, what more can I say?_  
 _For I am guilty for the voice that I obey_  
 _Too scared to sacrifice a choice chosen for me_  
 _If only I could see_  
 _Return myself to me_  
 _And recognise the poison in my heart_  
\- Portishead

"You mother _fucking_ fucksack!" Brian leans as far out of the open window as the glass will allow, practically foaming at the mouth as he watches the tail lights of what should have been the car behind drive on and dwindle.  Behind now, the speed of their vehicle remains infuriatingly, agonisingly even.

"What are you talking about?  Jay, stay with me, we're almost -"

"Some _asshat_ just overtook!"

Tim's the only one of their number with a valid license, but he's shaking too much to even grip the wheel. He threw himself into the back with Jay in his lap, refused to move, and handed Brian the keys.  So here he is trying to remember what does what while everyone else on the road seems to have congregated for the sole purpose of getting in his way.

"You're – hold on, Jay, I'm here, I'm here – you're missing the turn again."

"I asked you to shout me when -"

"Maybe if you spent more time looking at - _Jay_!  Don't close your eyes, please don't - looking at the road instead of swearing at other drivers -"

"You fucking... fuck-knuckle!  He didn't indicate!"

Brian glances at the overhead mirror. What he can see of the back seat is starting to resemble something out of a Tarantino movie, red all over.  Everything's red, the only light the signals on the dashboard and tail lights up ahead.  In the dark Tim's struggling to hold Jay's rag doll arms above his head to use his shirt as a tourniquet.  Brian moves to U-turn in the middle of the road, but falls short.  Drawing attention to themselves is the worst thing he could do - getting pulled over takes time they haven't got to lose.  The hospital is a five-minute drive from the house and they elected to go right away rather than wait for an ambulance. With Tim's poor back seat driving and the mounting traffic moving like molasses, it's looking like a worse decision as minute after precious minute ticks away.

"Ballbag!"  A light turns to red.  It's making his chest tighten in a way that feels scarily like a heart attack, but thinking that makes it worse, so he tries to do as he's told and focus on the road ahead and the scene playing out in the back seat behind him.  Tim's oblivious to the hold-up, whispering encouragement to the paper-pale man sprawled across his legs.  He runs his free hand with the grace and care of a potter over Jay's face and hair - holding onto the last threads of consciousness, Jay leans his cheek into the guiding hand, his lips moving in a mumble drowned by the hum of the engine.

For a moment he sees it, why they're together, and averts his eyes from a small gesture more intimate and uncomfortable to watch than anything he's walked in on or overheard before.  Then the light changes and Tim looks up to tell him it's the right turning this time.  The trickle of snail-paced red and yellow in front of them peters out as Brian turns into a winding avenue lined with underlit trees, and before long, a red brick building appears around the corner.  More windows and wings make themselves known the closer the car crawls.  God knows which does what - Brian's only seen the outside before.  He was still ziptied and gagged in the trunk when they dropped Jay off last time.  Shaking himself, he parks as straight as he can and lets himself breathe out for the first time in minutes.

He moves to the side door nearest Jay's feet, and between them he and Tim manage to manoeuvre Jay out with his hands still elevated.  The whole time he's murmuring wordless protestation, and it falls as the best music in the world to Brian's ears.  Staggering blindly into puddles thick with dried leaves they get him to the door where, miracle of miracles, two paramedics are arriving.  They take one look at bone-white Jay and the red stains on Tim's thighs and take him in.

Tim throws himself back against the wall and slides down to the wet concrete, right in the doorway.  He buries his head in his hands and Brian tries to imagine sitting on a rain-soaked pavement in jeans still sopping with his lover's blood, spilled willingly as he waited in pain, hating the world.  It's surely one of those things that lies beyond comprehension until you're unfortunate enough to have it happen.

An ambulance announces itself with flashing blue just beyond the line of the trees, and Brian's aware of the small space around the door they're taking up.  Tim's gone back into frightened hedgehog mode, throwing the hand he places on his shoulder.

"Tim, come on, let's go inside."

" _No._ "

"Tim, this is a hospital.  We're going to be in the way stood here."

Brian thanks his lucky stars he hit Tim's hero complex on the head.  He helps him to his feet and opens the door.  A rush of warm air loaded with carbolic soap and sweat hits them as they step inside, where the light is blinding by contrast and a cacophony of panic swarms in his ears.  Gleaming white walls only interrupted by coloured hygiene signs, the place only serves to make Brian feel dirtier, the blood on Tim's legs look redder.  With quaking legs and mud all up his trousers Brian's all too aware of looking like a patient himself, and some of the frightened glances they attract confirm it.

A sign overhead gives the vaguest of directions to the emergency unit.  Tim is drifting in his own universe with lost child look on his face.  Brian pulls at his arm, speeding up a little.  They've been gravitating towards one another and at some imperceptible point they link arms, running up stairs and along corridors through a labyrinth of automatic doors, Brian's nerves unravelling much like wool, but offering no way out of the maze.  The only link to the world around them is stopping to reassure passers-by that no, they're not hurt, but could they just point them to the emergency room?  Brian's doing all the talking.  Tim's clenching his jaw closed like something behind it is threatening to escape.

"We're keeping him on limited visits for now." The bottle blonde woman at the desk sits pouting and filing her nails, as it's highly unlikely she's paid enough to care.  "Family and partners only."

 _Come on, Tim.  Tell her_.  But from the faraway look he has says he's not even here.  "We're his housemates."

"And?"

"Can we wait?  Outside?"

She shrugs.  "It's your life."

"You really missed your chance there," says Brian, as they move to the waiting area along the hall.  "Saying you're his partner, I mean."

"In the south?  Have fun with that," says Tim, neatly dodging the question in a way he probably imagines is exceedingly clever.  "If you're going to come out with any variant of 'I told you so', do it now, while I don't care."

"Do you really think I'd do that to you?"

"I don't know what to think people would and wouldn't do right now."

Brian excuses himself and returns with apology coffee.  Tim takes the paper cup without looking up from the floor.  He tries to take a sip and some signal from his brain is preoccupied - his shaking hand propels it halfway down the hall. Dark drips run in all directions and he's staring at his hand like he's never seen it before.

"I can't look at it."

Brian nods.  He knows.  It's too similar to the red running down the door after Jay hurled himself outside.  Now his part is over Brian's finally able to, if not quite _relax_ , at least get a handle on the situation.  They'd alluded to it.  Talk of sleeping pills that trails off, the special care Tim takes not to leave any knives in plain view.  None of it made the shock of crimson painting the carpets any less unbelievable. Surreal, even, but immediate enough to jolt them both from whatever stupid ego match they were too wrapped up in.

Brian blows gently on his coffee and takes a sip, only to be met with a mouthful of grains and bitterness. "You're not missing much."

Although Tim is missing _everything_ by the look of things, staring at the door they've just walked through like he's trying to make it blink first.  _Tim hates hospitals_.  Brian could slapped himself.  _How could I forget_? Tim is trembling with enough violence to rock the cheap conjoined plastic seats they're parked on with Richter scale force.  No wonder he was so desperate to stay outside.  Now Tim's patting his pockets and finding he's left his cigarettes back at the house.  Salt in the wound.

"So, what time we planning on staying until?"  Brian's trying to work out how long he's been awake at this point.  He's scrambled from sleep deprivation and no use to anyone.  Just to have some kind of plan, a focal point in the whirlpool tonight has become.  On a more selfish note, he's not relishing the thought of a whole night with Tim self-deprecating and deprived of nicotine.  "It's not like I have anywhere to be."

"Until someone tells us how he is, I guess.  Or until I've got to get to work."

"Seriously?  You're still planning to go in after this?"

"Okay, I'll wait here while no-one talks to us and I'll get fired and we all go hungry for a few weeks."

"You haven't missed one day since -"

"Yeah, and I plan on keeping it that way.  Just tell me I don't care about him again and be done with it."

"I'm sorry I said that.  We're all saying things we don't mean."  But is that true?  The thought kind of has to be in your head anyway for it to come out in anger. Sometimes wrath, much like liquor, does as much to reveal as it does to blind.  Maybe the hard words flying around are shrapnel from the breakdown of delusion under focus.  For Tim it's need masquerading as love, and for Brian?  _The idea that a stupid roast dinner would fix everything.  That there's anything at all I can do_.

"I wanted to help you.  It's me he seems really uncomfortable with.  Maybe I should get my things and go."

Tim falls silent for the longest time, and there's footfalls like the swing of a pendulum down the corridor. Then he breathes in deeply and sits back.  "Do you remember that time in college when you thought it would be a great idea to grab me and make me run through all the double doors with you?  And we didn't stop laughing until we ran into the pull doors and ended up flat on the floor?"

"Yeah," says Brian, uneasily. "What does that have to do with...?"

"I just thought of it now, when we were trying to find this place."  He pauses.  "You were the first person I ever gave a damn about - you know that, right?  And for the longest time I thought you'd grown tired of me like everyone else does, when you left college and I didn't hear from you.  And then when I saw those tapes Jay found, I thought you were dead.  When it turned out you were, you know, the one in the hoodie -"

"I know I can never make it up to you."

"No, that's not what I'm saying. When we were watching all those videos I let myself hope that maybe you were the same as I was and you didn't know what you were doing -"

 _But I did_.

"- and that you'd come out of it okay, somehow.  And I _never_ let myself hope for anything anymore.  Not when you've been fucked over as many times as I have. But just this once I did and now whenever we're together, even after everything and when we haven't seen each other in seven years, haven't you noticed it's just like we were never even apart?  I don't have a whole lot to be thankful for.  So I'm just thankful because you're still you and that's the only thing stopping me from never giving a damn about anyone ever again."

By the time Tim remembers to breathe tears are pricking at the back of Brian's eyes.  He's never seen Tim like this before; he's cold and quiet until you learn to read the spaces between his sparse words.  "You see?  You can do it. Displaying affection and stuff."

"I don't even know what I'm saying."  He falls forward with his head in his hands, and there's a muffled sound that might be laughing or crying.  "I never know what I'm saying.  All I had to do was be _nice_ to him for five damn minutes."

"If you start blaming yourself for this, I am going to pour this undrinkable vending machine coffee over your head without hesitation.  You know that, right?"

It's not as though Jay was putting a whole lot of effort into his life, so what did he expect to get out of it?  Nobody ever got better by staying in bed.  The world's waiting outside the door, Brian's been trying to claim his share of it, so why can't Jay?  You work hard and you reap the rewards... right?  That's just universal.  Then again.  Jay put a lot of effort into hunting down Alex and look how that ended for him.

Tim's oblivious to his amateur philosophising, and wearing the closest thing he's seen to a smile all day.  "Don't ever go out of my life again."

Brian punches his arm gently.  "No chance of that.  Come on, you big marshmallow, you're wanted over there."

One of the consultants is heading decidedly in their direction.  Brian excuses himself while Tim gives what he can of Jay's details... and probably offers to foot the bill. Again.  He waits to take stock of the doctor's expression – concerned, curious, but without the shuffling dread that precipitates news of a death – and moves out.  It's late enough that most of the visitors seem to have left.  The sight of empty unfurling corridors and echoing metal on metal is doing weird things to the tightness in his chest, and he needs a moment alone, just to breathe.

Something shakes against his leg, like a rattlesnake, and there's a low-end buzzing like the static noise in - _it's my phone_.  The opening notes of _Gimme Shelter_ announce an incoming call, shivery and aquatic in the empty corridor, and in the scramble to take the phone with awkward fingers from his pocket it ends up scattered in pieces across the floor.  He wrings his hands and scrabbles after it, but his hands aren't doing as he tells them to and the slippery plastic keeps flying further away.

"Hey, buddy?  Are you okay down there?"

It's a voice he doesn't recognise, peering down over him.  Heat rises to his face.  He mumbles a _Fine_ from the side of his mouth with all the breath he has and gets to his feet, one hand flat against the wall and the other clutching fragments of phone.  He turns a corner before the kindness of strangers has time to embarrass him even more.

He finds a bathroom and the acoustics warp the sound of shouting and clattering equipment outside; for a second, it takes him back to school swimming trips, so far he can almost smell the chlorine.  Or is that the sterile air in here?  _Just slow down, for fuck's sake_ ; he thinks it with his hummingbird heart in mind, but it's also fitting for the room as it spins around him, and the urgent noise that builds and builds in his ears.

He stumbles into a stall just to sit. It's nothing.  All he's feeling now is the result of too much caffeine, too little sleep, and a lot of nasty surprises.  He leans forward with his head between his knees.  Just for a minute.  They should get moving.  Or at least find out if they're allowed to see Jay or not.  He stands, and his knees give way under him.  He catches his hand on the lock and rips the skin, just adding nicely to the caked blood already smearing his palms.  All the energy is wilting away from his body.  Like it did when – _no.  Don't go there_.

But now there's not even an explanation for his exhaustion.  And it's terrifying, to know your own mind and perceptions are so far out of your control.  _What if this happens at the bar_?  Or wherever he ended up working.  Is this what Jay has to live with all the fucking time?  He can't _think_.  It's hardly surprising he'd want out.

Once his hands are stable again he starts to slot his phone back together.  One piece is placed against another, that goes in there, easy as.  Everything's working fine, and the screen shows only hairline cracks and a missed call from his parents' number.  Returning the call, he leans back against the side of a stall with what equilibrium is left to him.  The phone rings twice, and he exhles in a slow shudder.  _Ring ring_ , in.  _Ring ring_ , out.

"Hello?"  The voice that answers is the same that answered in his dreams, where he came back to himself for a second and cried for help.  A voice that carries the smell of mown grass, and just hearing it he's back licking a milk moustache off his lip before running along to catch the school bus, or sneaking beer up to his room while she pretends not to notice.

"Mom, hey.  It's me.  Brian. Sorry I missed you."

"Hey, sweetie, hope it's not too late.  Thanks for calling back!  I tried your home number - hey, are you okay?  Your breathing's really heavy."

"I've... been at the gym.  I'm calling from the bathroom.  That's why it's kind of echoing in here." _Oh, nice_.  It's only partly a lie - it's one of the first things on his to-do list when he gets a job, and tonight has been the most physically exertive for a long while.  "I don't know what the other two are doing."  _Oh hey, that's not really a lie, either_.

"Well, are any of you free Saturday?"

"I've still had no luck on the job front, so yeah, why?"

"I'm sorry to spring this on you at short notice, I know it's a long drive and all, but we've only just found out that Paul can take the time off work."

His heart leaps into his mouth. "Paul's coming back?"

"Yes, with Jeanette and Grace."

The wife and daughter he's never met. "Then I'll be there.  Even if I have to walk."

"That's great!  Oh, sweetie, I can't tell you how it feels to know I'll have both of you in the same room again."

"Don't cry, mom," he says, though a lump is rising in his own throat.  He could tell her everything.  He _should_.  How can he just sit here and lie like this, about lost time and masks and tapes and guns and the fact everything he did culminated in Jay lying there bleeding to death? When she's trying so hard to make everything nice for him?  He doesn't deserve her kindness, especially not when it's offered through a lie.

But then, maybe she deserves a little ignorant bliss, after all the trouble he's put her through.  _Just breathe_. "If you even _think_ about getting out the kid photos there'll be trouble."

"Come to think, I don't think your brother's been embarrassed in front of Jeanette with those before.  I feel like I'm a failure as a mother-in-law.  You know, you're more than welcome to bring your friends with you, if you want."

"Uh, Jay's out of town right now. But I'd be asking Tim to drive me anyway, so..."

By the time she rings off, Brian knows what time to be there and where to get directions and that yes, it's okay to bring a smoker indoors.  But when the call ends and the screen darkens, she takes all the golden glow of his childhood home with her and he's left with the death rattle of the plumbing for company.

At least no-one came in while he took the call; seclusion offers some safety.  It's like coming off stage, wiping away the mask of make-up and taking a bow.  Show's over. Except his life has turned into one long rehearsal - expression, body language, audience, what he has to say next, all of it making demands of him, every time he leaves his room.  He's been trained to pay attention to detail, but never like this.

One final curtain call for the nurse, and they can go home.  That's all.  Tim must be done giving over details by now.  He rises back to his feet, feeling just about athletic enough to walk over to the row of sinks.  The lights are giving out, offering him a flick-book view of himself walking gaunt and sallow toward the greasy mirror.

The last time he saw Paul, he was seventeen with spots and a rotating line of band T-shirts, spiking his hair with soap to look like Sid Vicious and tearing down the walls of their far-away family home in frustration.  What happened in the interim to swap the sweat-stained band shirts for a suit and turn him into an accountant with a family and a house in the city?  How do you walk back into one another's lives when so much has passed without the other?  As Tim was so keen to remind him earlier, Brian hasn't so much as dated since college, and there's his little brother with the whole wedded deal.

When he pictures himself in his mind he's still young, still strong; walking towards him in the mirror is someone dressed up in his skin.  But it's not.  Now that the world's a goddamn stage, here he is before costume, make-up, last-minute script revisions, in raw and ugly form most people have the good fortune of blindness to.

 _We've all got to move on.  I don't keep on living in the past.  Just don't think about it_.

He stoops a little to wash his hands of dirt and blood.  The room falls away until he's stood in the woods outside – the same hands chapped and calloused, pulled from rough woollen gloves, held under river water to wash what dirt and whose blood? – and it's enough that he has to look into the blinding on-off strip lighting to come back into himself.

 _Except you think about it all the time_.

It hits him, a blunt force trauma to his façade.  He tries to recount how much time he's spent – _oh, the irony_ – looking back at the past like a frightened child peeking from behind his hands, then running away, as if he's scaring himself to prove how brave he is.  All the times he tries to pretend he doesn't look over his shoulder sometimes, he doesn't wake up screaming at the thought of finding tan fabric with a face sewn in at the back of his closet.

There was a story he learned in a History class once.  Some Viking lord who was killed by a dead man. He mounted the head of a fallen foe on his horse for all to see, but grazed his leg on the dead man's tooth while saddling up.  The cut turned septic, and he died, from something that should've been put to rest.  From the last place he thought to look.

In this flickering light, the gaps in his vision for the darkness invite themselves to be filled with a film reel of memory.  How much his half-recollection of the time under the hood haunts him.  Or is it full recollection?  Most of it's embedded in there but it wasn't _him_ , it's more like watching his own hands in a movie, in much the same way that recalling a time when he slept in a house and remembered his name seemed like someone else's story back then.

It was the gunshot that pulled him out of it.  In that second the spray of red on the rotting wall flicked him back into reality, _he was real and not the other_.  Then he was marched into a car at gunpoint by Tim - Tim?  Who he'd seen yesterday messing about with his ukulele?  Or was it a hundred years ago?  He wasn't sure of anything until they left what looked like Jay's corpse at the hospital, and he found himself ziptied and gagged on Tim's floor.  He remembers the pattern of the rug up close at eye level, and the fog that fell over him.  That wasn't _him_.  It was a vivid dream.  Then Tim placed a laptop in front of him, a Youtube video on the screen showing him arty shots of the town where they all went to college.  Only something about the fact that he was bound on the floor was telling him this wasn't a pleasant stroll down memory lane they were about to embark on.

" _You watch, you son of a bitch_!"

And he did.

The restraints came off not long after Tim was unmasked on screen.  Tim let him change his clothes some time in the fifties; by the end, they were sobbing onto each other's shoulders.  And the next morning they were joking about lying ziptied on the floor being some kind of hazing ritual in Tim's house before they burned the hoodie together, and he can still see the red patches curling in the flames, imprinted on his eyes.

 _You're still you_.

But he isn't.  _Brian_ never hesitated and never worried about what to say.  What Brian did do was interfere, whether it was something as benign as trying to matchmake two friends or muscle in on someone's script, it's beside the point. The point is that he never knew when to stop.  He wanted control. Kind of like the one in the hood.

The past is the past. If the moving Rorschach patterns of those videos ever meant anything, it's lost to him now, because it was never _him_ typing it – it was something else on his operating system.  Taking his body for a spin, as Tim put it, except picking and choosing parts of his mind as well.  All he remembers as _himself_ is flashes of forests and a few times he woke up coughing on the broken floor of that tumbledown hovel, with a mutilated doll staring him in the face.  The videos themselves became a whole lot less scary when he imagined himself actually taking the time to put them together, or is that what he told himself to avoid the truth of what he'd been used for?

Much as a moment of drunken rage often reveals a sincerity hidden even from the speaker, the thing that took over his mind and body must've latched onto something that was already there.  Something that acted as seed, and now the roots are reaching right through him, twisting until he doesn't know where he is anymore.

 _You are you_.

He catches himself in the glass, the reflection dark, bloodshot eyes staring back at him, smears of blood from his hands like war-paint daubed on his temples.  His chest tightens until he chokes on his scream and the whole room turns to coffin space.

 _But who are you_?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone knows Brian's ringtone but [here it is anyway](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_a0zOLMAfw).


	10. Interlude

_Autumn's hue in those sad eyes_  
 _Makes me love and love them more_  
 _I'll have a bath, I'll make the dinner, then I'll go away for a long, long time_  
 _But still you've not passed my door_  
 _And when you smile those sad eyes_  
 _Look sadder and sadder still_  
\- Bat For Lashes

"If you were a woman, you'd have been told to turn that frown upside down, or something equally nauseating, at least five times today."

Tim lifts his sore eyes from the crossword puzzle he's been pretending to fill in. _Point taken_. Ren's stood with her back to him, restocking the magazines with the occasional clandestine flip through the pages. He waits for her to turn around and summons from the core of his bones the gargantuan effort of will it takes to plaster a somewhat sincere-looking grin all over his face.

"No, don't do that, it's horrifying. People are going to come in here and buy things they need regardless of how your facial muscles are arranged. I'm just making you aware of the double standard applied to my face and yours. And a very nice face it is, too."

Tim could bury the face in question into the counter - he's _blushing_. And judging by the waggle of her arched eyebrows, that's exactly what she wanted.

"Don't look so scared," says Ren. "You're pretty, but you're a little short for me."

It's true. Ren is an Amazon in ballet flats and black and green striped leggings. _Ren Riley_ even sounds like the name of a superhero's day job alter ego. She's his supervisor and two years younger than him, she looks like Rihanna, and she's a Philosophy student who reads stolen snatches of Sartre on her smoke breaks. All this combined makes the day Tim had to intervene and stop her sticking a metal fork in the toaster rank as one of the proudest of his life.

They have something of an understanding going on, work-wise. Tim doesn't appreciate being told to smile more by Nate, their crow's-footed manager, any more than Ren enjoys being told to laugh off the stares and remarks she gets from some of the male customers because sometimes on a hot day she wears a T-shirt and _oh my God_ her _elbows_ are showing. When it's just the two of them they're free to scowl all they like, and funnily enough, the bell above the door rings with comings and goings just as much as it does any other day. And Tim likes her, even if she's not quite a _friend_ – she's surely only humouring the weird quiet one. But she's sincere in a way that's sadly rare; some people call it rude, but if you spend your life the subject of sidelong stares and whispered gossiping relish, it's refreshing to know where you stand with someone.

But in light of their unspoken agreement, all she says about the arrangement of his facial muscles is too close to concern for comfort.

“How is the lucky girl, anyway?” She's thumbing a glossy magazine from cover to lurid pink cover, but her eyes keep drifting over to him, like they're magnetised.

“Sorry?”

“I know there's someone. Sometimes I catch you on the phone and you're actually smiling.” She replaces the magazine and turns toward him. She means business “But not today."

The trouble is that when Ren decides she's interested in something, she won't drop it. No doubt it stands her in good stead with her professors as she studies for the Philosophy degree that's going to to have limitless, bounteous use to her after she finishes, but right now, it's about as welcome as a cattle prod needing him for information. The best way of derailing this conversation? Awkwardness. Tim hasn't told many people, but on the few times he has trusted them enough, it's worked. _Tell the truth_.

“I'm seeing a guy, actually.”

“Oh.” Her voice is small, the closest to humble he's ever heard her. “Nice defaulting, Ren. So, how is the lucky _guy_?”

How laughable the idea that Jay is 'lucky' in any way. As to the question, he can't and won't say. Brian hasn't been in touch yet with any word from the hospital. Brian hasn't said anything apart from suggesting he pick at the few unspoiled bits of yesterday's aborted roast before leaving, endurance test though it may be with the knot in his stomach that's been there over twelve hours and didn't even loosen with news they'd made it to the hospital in time. The whole house still looks like a crime scene. Tim slept on the couch. He took one look at the bedroom and the patch of the carpet Jay had been sitting on last and moved out, staring all night at the mess around him that would've been an obvious distress call to anyone less fucking self-absorbed.

"He's... a little under the weather this week."

"Look, Tim, you don't have to tell me but you don't have to keep it to yourself, either. I heard you crying on the phone yesterday. You said 'I love you' and it sounded like 'Help me' – oh wait, actually, that's a good one, remind me to write that down. Point being, I hope you're okay. You look exhausted. Plus you're doing that thing you do where you work twice as hard as usual to try and hide the fact that you evidently haven't slept."

 _Life lessons with Tim W., episode one: never try to hide anything from a woman majoring in thinking too much_.

Tim's eyes are pricking. He's not the one who deserves this concern. It should be Jay, and Tim should be throwing himself with all force against the walls he's been building around himself. But he's not. He's here. He stares as far as he can towards the back of the store. “The, uh, detergent looks like it's running low. I'll go get more.”

Tim crashes through the strings of coloured beads that separate the store and the stock area. The stage and the rest rooms. His performance has been stellar today. He hasn't dropped, missold, or miscounted a single item since he got here. Round of applause, if you please. The snapping sound as he takes a seat on a stack of soda cans is substitute enough.

 _Whatever else you say, you're doing great for being here right now_ . To turn up for work on no sleep with Jay in hospital would be beyond most people. Not that he feels any better about his fiasco of a performance last night. All the words of his therapists about achievement ring hollow in his ears. Logically Brian is right, and it's never the fault of one person, but he doesn't _feel_ it. Talking with Ren - a link to a world beyond the same four walls - about their relationship has thrown everything under a harsh and unflattering light. If she with her million friends could see him spend every night fretting over and running around after someone who's cheated on him, who's never appreciated anything he does, who's _threatened him with serious physical harm_ on several occasions, what would she say? _You really value yourself so little?_ And after everything Jay gave him over that one stupid omission about a tape.

It would be horrifically egocentric for Tim to consider himself important enough to pin every aspect of Jay's breakdown on some quirk or wrongdoing of his own, yes. But he can't be blameless. Something else Brian said has stalked him through the hospital corridors and the more intricate tunnels of his own mind; _are you just afraid that he might realise there's other people in the world than you_? And that's sharper than Tim would've ever given him credit for. All that time they worked together, in his selfishness he liked having someone depend on him, for once. Now Jay doesn't know anything else. It's not only that Tim doesn't have the responsibility to pick up the broken pieces of Jay to scrape him out of whatever meltdown he's having – maybe he doesn't have the right to.

He has too much of his own baggage to work through first. At the end of the day, Jay deserves better. Someone who can keep their temper on an even keel, whose words don't mutate into bitter insults on their way from mind to mouth.

He leaps out of his skin when Ren sticks her head through the bead curtains, grinning ear to ear. "There's a guy asking for you who says he lives with you. I didn't mean to you upset you, if you don't want to talk about it, but is that _him_? He's gorgeous! Nice one, Tim!"

He's hopeful for a second. Jay has woken up already and he's here to make amends. But realistically... "No, that's the other one."

"Is he single?"

Tim ignores her and pushes past to where Brian stands with his back to him, leafing through a cycling magazine and doing a great job of getting in everyone's way. It can only be Jay. He was supposed to call as soon as there was news – why come all the way here? It's a ten-minute drive and longer by bus. What if it's something he didn't feel able to say over the phone? But then, casually perusing periodicals has to be a sign that everything's okay, right? Tim steps forward and taps him on the shoulder.

"This is a store, not a library."

"Very professional of you." He's still holding out the magazine but gazing at the doorway behind him; the one Ren vanished through.

"I try. What're you here for?" He checks for Ren or anyone of the elderly ladies who frequent the shop with nothing better to do listening in. Coast clear, he drops his voice. "Is there any news?"

"Maybe I just missed you, man."

"Cut the dramatics and just tell me."

"Jay's come round and they're letting us see him this evening."

"That's all I wanted to hear."

"He's.. kind of out of it, they said. Not co-operating. The nurse told me he ripped a drip out of his arm and tried to make a break for it."

"Okay. I guess it's not really surprising. And I guess he's still there, at least."

"Best place he can be."

"Yeah. We'll go when I'm done here. Anything else I need to know?"

"Actually, yes. You know I'm an uncle now?"

"Yeah. I pity the child."

"My brother's here this weekend and my parents want me to go and stay, they're having a little party up at their place. He lives out of state and I don't know when I'll have chance to see him again, so I -"

"You want me to drive you?"

"Actually, I was going to ask if you wanted to come join us. You said you weren't working Saturday, and they'd be glad to have you. They're really grateful for you putting me up – I wouldn't be able to get a job or anything all the way out at there place, so... Just if you're not planning anything else. I thought it might take your mind off things."

"I don't know. You should probably ask them first."

"They invited you specifically. Come on. You've only seen the inside of this store and the house for _months._ It'll be good for you."

Tim has about five seconds to cycle through any plausible excuses before Brian realises he's doing it... and he's out of time. "Okay. Sure." Nothing about the combination of small children and being marinated in other people's happiness sounds appealing, but it's hard to pretend to someone you live with every day that you have anything better to do. “So how come you're here?”

“I don't feel so good in the house right now. Also, you left your phone at home.”

It's a very un-Brian thing to say and Tim's stumped for a response. Lucky for him Ren appears at his side in that ninja-like way she has. "Everything okay? I'm guessing so. It's the first time he hasn't looked ready to murder someone all day."

“Not to labour the point or anything.”

"I respect your facial autonomy, Tim, I'm just making you aware you're part of the problem."

Tim nods. “I'm free Saturday, right?”

She frowns for a second, then snaps her head to look straight at Brian. “Better plan. Tim gets two weeks' holiday if I get your number.”

“Uh... sure,” says Brian, looking at her like he can't quite believe she's real. He's paralysed for a second then remembers his phone exists, close to dropping it in his haste to get it out of his pocket.

Ren presses in the number as he reads it out, smiles, and turns on her heel. Tim watches open-mouthed as she skips across the shop floor and disappears back behind the bead curtains, like she's returning to some mystical other world from whence she came. “If you had any idea how many guys I've seen come in here bent over backwards trying to do what you just did...”

Brian is bright red and rubbing the back of his neck, biting his lip to try and restrain the grin that's threatening to cover his face. “Did that actually just happen? You never mentioned working with anyone... like her.”

 _Why would I_? She's not Jay. He can register on some near-objective level that Ren is aesthetically pleasant, and even without that all the mostly unwelcome attention she gets from male customers would attest to it. He can say with more surety that he _likes_ her more than most people – they can be prickly and defensive together – but _liking_ her couldn't be further from his mind.

Brian, though... They're perfectly matched in their capacity to make Tim feel genetically and aesthetically inferior, if nothing else.

“You going to take her up on it?”

“I couldn't let you miss out on time off, could I?”

“How very selfless of you.”

“There may be certain perks in it for me, too. I guess.”

“Like being able to add 'gigolo' to your resume?”

"So what's her name?"

"Ren."

"Ren as in 'Wren' the bird, or?"

"Ren as in short for _Brenda_ , but if you have any sense at all you won't mention that."

"Good to know."

"She's just objectifying you, you know."

"If there's a downside to that I fail to see it."

"She reads for _fun_. She'll be bored listening to you talk about kicking a ball around within about ten minutes."

"Hey, I can be cultured. I'm an _ac-tor_ , remember?" At which point Brian whirls away from him and grabs one of the smaller melons from the stands, striding in a circle and holding it up to eye level. "Lay on, Macduff!"

"Even I know that's _Macbeth_."

" _The Scottish Play_!"

"Does it looks like we're in a theatre?"

"Well." Brian's face crumples in confusion. "So which one has the skull?"

"Get out of this store before you get me fired. Just go home and entertain yourself in whatever depraved way you can think of and I'll see you in a couple of hours."

Brian exits with his best theatrical bow, and whips around the door

"I was going to give you a holiday anyway," says a self-satisfied voice to his left, "because I think you've more than earned it. But he wasn't to know that. What's his name, by the way?"

For the next two hours Ren waltzes through the shop looking even more pleased with herself than usual. It's kind of touching to see her excited about something, rather than watching people pass with a raised eyebrow and a curl of her lip that suggests a series of sarcastic responses brewing behind it. Made more so by the fact that it's Brian. It's something small to smile about on the journey home.

Music's already coming from the house again as Tim parks the car. A barrage of Prince hits him as he walks through the door. Brian's nowhere to be seen but there's evidence of him strewn around amongst the test of hot coals on the living room floor - the synths blasting from the hi-fi, the pans in a gleaming stack by the sink and free of all burnt dinner residue. He walks the length of the corridor and finds Brian in the bathroom, determination to party like it's 1999 apparently undeterred. Of all the things Tim might have expected to be confronted with upon returning, Brian in front of the mirror gyrating and mouthing ' _I've got a lion in my pocket, and baby, he's ready to roar'_ was not one of them. Neither was the clean bathroom.

"You shouldn't have."

He's been thorough. Sun streams in onto shining white tiles and fittings. Tim's practically choking on citrus-scented bleach merely hovering in the doorway. Apart from the bloodied towels peeping out of a bag by his side, there'd be nothing at all to suggest what happened last night.

Brian removes the vaguely comical rubber gloves he's wearing and stands, admiring his handiwork. "I thought it would be easier for me to do it." He realises what he's said and stammers. "Because you've been at work, I mean. Because you'll be tired."

"I get what you meant. Are we ready to go?"

They pile into the car, Tim back in the driver's seat. Brian claims a pair of sunglasses from the dashboard – aviators that Tim isn't sure work with his facial structure – and looks as dashing as always in them. Almost like he did on the first day they met; glasses, leather jacket, gaping grin. If he's lost the backpack full of books and the band of swooning women since, at least the most important thing is still there; the one kind face in a crowd of strangers who were so likely to be sneering he couldn't bring himself to look at them. At first glance Brian was a typical jock, an _archetypal_ jock, a status he could've quite easily attained with his muscles and his million talents. He's always had that preternatural homing instinct they do for the loners, the outcasts, the ones with something to hide – only he used to use it to bring outliers into the fold instead of pushing them further away. There aren't many things he's thankful for, but the fact that it's his sunglasses Brian is comfortable enough helping himself to is one of them.

Tim's left to deal with the glare of the sun, and the illumination of his own stupidity a day spent outside his own head brings. To think he let uninsured Brian, who's well practised at breaking into cars but can't have driven since college, sit behind the wheel to take them through thick traffic to the hospital. He risked his license, his job, the safety of the other drivers... and Jay.

Acting first and thinking later has been a recurrent theme in their relationship from the get-go, though. It's what happened when he ran out of Alex's basement into the sudden darkness and realised Jay wasn't behind him. He was running back and calling his name before he knew what he was doing, his head full of pictures of Jay smiling, his scent, his lips on his.

Falling in love with him didn't even figure in the risk assessment, such as it was. To love him Tim would have to be patient and forgiving and open and all those other things he wasn't until now. How could Jay love him back, like that? But he did, and they only knew when it was too late, and left to go bad it's not the kind of sickness you can fix.

“ _Loving you isn't the right thing to do_

_How can I ever change things that I feel?_

_If I could, baby, I'd give you my world_

_How can I when you won't take it from me?_

_You can go your own way -”_

“That's enough music for now.”

The bathroom tiles wiped clean are still on his mind when they arrive at the hospital. Something about it strikes him as intimately familiar, the fake chemical cleanliness covering up the smell of broken promises. From top to bottom this building crawls with people who gave over years to learn to save a life, but sometimes they're going to lose, right? All that time he spent inhaling it while he waited for visits from his mother that never came around. Climbing the walls as a child; _literally and metaphorically_. Waiting for Jay that day he made an appointment he never went to. Waiting for Jay after he was shot, kissing his hand whenever a nurse wasn't looking. Even the lobby reeks of it, enough to keep him outside for a smoke he struggles to light.

Brian's pacing and trying to be helpful. "Any idea what we'll do once he's out of emergency?"

"No idea. They'll want the bed as soon as possible."

"Can we send him to a clinic?"

"If you've got a winning lottery ticket or a genius business idea, then maybe."

"Well, what are we going to do?"

"Brian, _I don't know_." Just because he's never been in for anything worse than a broken arm from trying to climb to the roof of the gym, he seems to think Tim knows everything there is to know about hospital procedure. _I have enough questions in my head right now_. Like what he, personally, is going to decide about Jay.

“I guess we're all about to get a lot thinner.”

Tim glances at Brian's bare arm and the way his elbow juts out, how delicate his wrist is looking. “Forget it. If it comes to that, I'll be the one going hungry. I'm the only one with weight left to lose.”

“And the only one with a job?”

“Exactly. I can steal lunch if I have to. Besides -” and Tim's cut off by the clamour of a trolley loaded with equipment crashing past.

"You can't smoke here," says the nurse behind it, and the man's tone is as gleeful as if he's telling Tim Christmas has come early.

"What, because of all this highly inflammable glass and concrete?"

" _Timothy_." Brian's pushing on his shoulders and shoving him through the automatic door. The stench of lies hits him full in the face. A battering of memory. He doesn't want to be to lost, lonely Jay what his family were to him, but it's not a choice at this point. Is he going to tell Jay it's over while he's lying in his hospital bed, or wait until after and he's in a false sense of security? It's a dick move either way and Tim's not going to feel good about either choice – _so let's keep the focus where it should be_. On what's slightly less bad for Jay, as much as he's equipped to say. To know the sounds someone makes in bed but not what their parents do or what kind of music they listen to... is that the wrong way to do it, or a valid question as to what's really important?

Hell, if nothing else, at least he's in the right place if he attempts anything drastic. Which doesn't seem likely when they find his bed. Jay is lying still with his hair fanning out around his head, clean for the first time in how long? Tim looks at the steady rise and fall of his chest, notes the colour returning to his face, and he has to sit down. He takes the seat next to the bed. Brian's hand falls on his shoulder as he strokes Jay's fingers with his own. A stripe of white bandage covers the damage, pure and clean. He remembers the last time they kissed, for real, when they fell into bed together after Tim's worst ever shift and they worked out their tension on each other slowly, half the night, and he raises Jay's hand and presses it to his lips like some of the love could flow out of him and make it okay again. The consultant chooses that moment to walk in and he drops this toy he'd been expressly forbidden from playing with.

She's looking at him from behind a buoyant head of wiry grey hair and half-moon spectacles, but a smile sits easy beneath. “Andrea Moreno,” she says, extending a hand adorned with wrinkles and a wedding band. All very warm, very safe. “I'm from psych.”

“I'm his... we live together.”

She nods magnanimously, not acknowledging the kiss. "It's good to hear from you. We'll be keeping him in a couple of days here, then transferring him to me for a week or so, with permission. He'll make it, but we're waiting to see what the blood loss might have done. That and the... substances in his system. You lived with him, do you know if -?"

"He's been drinking a lot lately," Brian puts in like it's a competition.

Tim has one question, for now. "Did he mean it?"

"It's hard to say. He hacked up one wrist pretty badly. But he didn't do anything to prevent clotting, so there's a chance it's a cry for help, but -"

"He needs help. Whatever he says."

"I see that. He's quite malnourished, so we'll try to take care of that, and was there some injury to his abdomen recently?"

“He was shot,” says Brian. “Hit and run thing. Couldn't find anything on the killer.”

"My God. It's no wonder he doesn't want to stay in one place. We had to sedate him because he wouldn't stop pulling the drips out of his arm, trying to get out. We couldn't get any family contact details out of him, either."

"We've got nothing," says Brian.

Tim's done with vaguery – it's only making his head spin with worst cases. "How is he, really?"

"He'll be fine if we can keep him under long enough to get his electrolytes up and stop him doing anything to infect the wounds. We're expecting some nerve damage to his left hand, which is really better than could've been hoped for from the way he hacked up that wrist. He's quite malnourished; has he experienced any appetite loss?"

They both nod.

"That'll be the drinking. But it's nothing that can't right itself and physically, he'll be fine. And you said he was _shot_ not so long ago, as well? He's lucky, really."

That word again. _Lucky_. Jay. _Don't make me laugh_.

"Mentally, on the other hand..."

 _What do you think you're going to tell me that I don't already know_?

"He's not co-operating at all when we try to evaluate him. He's anxious to the point of paranoia that we're trying to imprison him here but I can't suggest medication or therapy without a few answers. Perhaps if one of you was to sit -"

"I'd only make it worse," says Tim before he thinks about it.

She looks at him hawk-like over the rims of her glasses like she's expecting an explanation.

"He had a... stalker, for a while," says Brian. "He was on the run for years We've only just found him - we were all college friends - and we took him in, and then this. Yeah."

 _Shut_ up, _Brian_. Tim can see what he's trying to do and it's not such a bad idea - a real world equivalent to their experience that a trauma therapist could probably help him work through. But there's no way for Jay to corroborate now, and he could so easily say something to make everything worse.

"There's another thing. When we screened him we found alcohol in his system, a you said, but the test also turned up trace amounts of cocaine."

 _Well. I didn't know that_.

"That... must've been from the previous night, as well," Brian adds for seemingly no reason but to break the silence that's eerie in a building as busy as this one.

Dr. Moreno sighs. "As I said, we're keeping him under for now. We'll be in touch but we're keeping visits limited until we know where his head's at."

"You'll know if he's lying. He's terrible at it." In his head Tim hears Jay telling Jessica about the documentary on hotels, and hadn't thought anything could hurt so much.

"I just want to see him right now," he says as she gives him the _Go away, you weird gay crackheads_ look, scurrying away.

"He did _coke_?" Beside him Brian whistles in shock. "One time in college. Only once, 'cause anything that good has got to be illegal. Do you think it was just the once for Jay, or?"

"The hell should I know?"

Tim shrugs it off with anger, but it's not Brian. It's him. It tries to steal away before his forefront consciousness notices it, but Tim's too attuned to himself now. Jay was on drugs and that's why he smashed up the living room. It was the illegal and enormously dangerous chemicals flooding his system that drove him to throw things at Tim, not any genuine anger at Tim himself.

His immediate response?

Relief.

 _I am a disgusting person_.

Tim looks over at a face that's drifted in and out of his life for seven years, that he's loved for one, and wanted to punch God knows how many times. He's lying still and pale as death with countless tubes and wires coming out of him, leading to one machine or another, all LED lights and mechanical pulses. For a moment he's back behind his laptop with headphones and leads and USB cords trailing like vines over the floor, except the animation's gone from his face and the bandages would get in the way of his typing. That was all he had to give him any reason to get up in the morning - more fool Tim for thinking he could take its place. He's only a link to the past, and Jay has to move on. He still wants his answers but with this, it's like he's forgotten the questions.

Looking at him now Tim still wants to be the first thing Jay sees in the morning; he's been the anchor that reminds him where he is, takes the momentary confusion from his face with a smile and an arm wound around him. He wants to sit playing songs for Jay while Jay pours over a film to tell him about natural framing or something. He wants for them to re-emerge into the world together, share coffee before work, read the morning papers and find out what they agree on, what they can learn together. He wants to be both the blanket that hides him, keeps him safe when he's scared, and the light that shines in his dark room to show the world how great he is. He wants the darkness, too – all the most painful and unflattering and embarrassing things about him, because _I love you that much_. He wants Jay to look into his eyes and see how beautiful he is mirrored there and he wants to run in and scream until he wakes that if he can't see it, he should clean the lens, find a better angle, change the lighting, whatever the hell else his film class told him to do.

But Jay doesn't. And staying with him, loading him with expectation and ideas he'll twist into obligation... it can't go on. He's drinking too much. He's doing drugs. These are all big fucking neon signs that would've been obvious to anyone better at reading the most obvious social cues, and he's failed him. He can barely stand as he turns to walk out, but it's the right thing, even if the right thing always has to hurt so much.

The doctor wants him to answer some questions. He nods, and follows behind the door. Jay is beautiful, lying with his face unlined by torments and his hair swept off to the side. Broken glass catching starlight is beautiful, but it's outlived its use, and it'll cut you all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1999](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDMacGAoqsk) is pretty much Brian's theme song in this; [Go Your Own Way](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ul-cZyuYq4) is a song that I shamefully cried to in public with this chapter in mind.


	11. Harmony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some NSFW content ahead - which is apt phrasing considering I wrote it mostly in the staff room at work. I feel that if nothing else deserves your kudos.

_Spider and I sit watching the sky_  
 _On a world without sound_  
 _We knit a web to catch one tiny fly_  
 _For our world without sound_  
 _We sleep in the morning_  
 _We dream of a ship that sails away_  
 _A thousand miles away_  
\- Brian Eno

_"Jay, it's late.”_

_One side of his face to his liking, Tim tilts his head to shave in the other sideburn, and Jay is revealed to him in the glass through a muslin veil of cigarette smoke. He's haloed in light by the laptop and doesn't so much as blink. As always when he's working, a few seconds pass before he acknowledges he's been spoken to, grunting 'almost done' and typing some more._

“ _You're taking your time with this one.”_

“ _Made a montage to go at the beginning.”_

“ _Of my ass?”_

_That gets his attention. Jay's head darts up in the mirror, and Tim can't help smiling to himself.  “What?”_

“ _Every time I've looked at the screen today that's all I can see on it.”_

_Jay resumes typing, with an affected secretarial air. “Not my fault if your ass is big enough to fill the whole screen.”_

“ _But since you're evidently so drawn to it...”_

_Jay sighs. “Just let me finish. Then I'm all yours.”_

_They've been living like this since they got here. Long days of chasing wild geese give way to evenings spent sniping at each other before they work it out between the sheets. Well, usually. Sometimes the shower, if the room echoes and the murmurings of the neighbours sound a little too clear for comfort. That one time against the door about a second after they walked through it. There's never a lot of talking involved. Is that healthy? They shuffle around each other all day until crossing the threshold of their rented room awakens this compulsion for skin on skin and their mouths are otherwise engaged for the remainder of the night. But what's the other option? Sleeping alone for a couple of hours and waking from a nightmare with no-one to hold. You take your comforts as you find them, right? And there's no denying the flutter in his stomach when Jay says 'all yours', or the paling day by day of the charcoal shadows around their eyes._

_It's not exactly roses and champagne, what they're doing. The frigid blue glow of technology is a sadly prosaic replacement for making love by firelight and the air-con seems woefully inadequate with its score of monotonous humming, but regardless, Tim can't remember or imagine ever desiring anyone the way he does Jay right at this moment._

“ _If you can keep your hands off yourself for five minutes.” Jay's tone is disdainful, but his eyes linger just a little too long for that. There's nothing left on his body Jay is not well acquainted with by now, but the sexual tension still makes eye contact intimidating._

_Tim's done. Maintaining his appearance remains of imperative importance in the face of everything around them. For some reason. His sorry life may have spiralled further out of his control than he could ever have possibly foreseen, but hey, at least his hair is still better than everyone else's. He splashes his face to rinse away the last of the soap that's doubling as shaving cream and walks barefoot back into the room, leaning against the door frame and running a hand through his perfected hair. “It takes effort to look like this, you know. It's clearly working if all you want to do is film my ass.”_

_He moves to the bed and lies propped up on an elbow behind Jay, who sighs again, like he's being patient with an interrupting puppy. Tim lolls his head against his shoulder accordingly. Their tireless searching through the day, running on frustration or fear for their lives by turns, walking the same tracks and trails looking for what they're not quite sure - it all leads up to this. Winding down with Jay. Letting the storm inside him settle by folding into and around him. Jay tilts his head to rest on top of Tim's while he works, while Tim brushes the sensitive skin on the underside of his forearms in that way he's learned he loves. The insect pattering of his fleet-fingered typing continues, but there's the slightest of shivers running through him and he shifts his weight back toward Tim, warm and welcome._

“ _So what's the montage, other than my ass?” At first Jay hunched like Quasimodo over the laptop as he worked, as if he was hoarding treasure, but now he's quite happy for Tim to see whatever's on the screen. In light of that it only seems fair to take a little more interest in Jay's uploads, especially since they're meant to be a team on this._

“ _It's just some of the footage we took when we were looking. There was so much of it, and I didn't it to go to waste, so...”_

_Jay's on screen now, kneeling on a pavement. The parks and woods their screen selves are traversing look bright and verdant in a refreshing contrast to the grey little rooms they're growing used to waking up in. Is it any wonder they'd seek what little colour they could in one another? For Tim it's the first time entertaining the same sexual partner more than once, and through piecing together the scraps of conversation they have, he can surmise the same is true for Jay. It's gone on long enough to feel like something resembling routine, but never tiresome – weeks later and exploring someone's body can still find new ways to surprise you. A little gasp more overwhelmed than usual here, a sweet spot on the side of his neck you've never found before there._

_The half-familiarity of the college town is much more disconcerting. Walking the same streets as a different person and trying to equate the two feels much the same as being told about childhood memories he's since forgotten. The optimism of those days, the sense of starting anew, carries on the wind when he smells the earthy scent of wood after a rain in the fall. Snippets of conversation crop up in his mind here and there, tied in with sights and scents from a past life. Sometimes he fancies he can even hear tentative notes from a ukulele, and if he doesn't laugh, he'll cry._

_They've had no luck getting any of the burned tapes to play yet, and every time, a part of Tim is cheering. Since they stopped driving the film footage hasn't so much as flickered. Jay's camera – always set up in their room overnight, no matter what they're doing – reveals nothing that shouldn't be there in the morning. If it's not peace, it's close enough._

_There's much that could be mourned, but Tim can't find it in himself. Not with Jay pinned between his arms, and a month where he's slept better than he has in years._

_He turns back to the screen. “'We didn't find anything until a few days ago, while looking in the local park' – I'll say we found something that day,” he says, with one choice, not-quite-public-if-there's-nobody-looking incident amongst the shrubbery in mind._

“ _Shut up.” Jay knows exactly what he means and blushes. He gives Tim's shoulder a gentle shove and frowns, his fingers hovering over the keys but never taking the plunge. Tim's there first. He reaches around to claim the keyboard before Jay can stop him. With an impish grin he looks up – imposed over the picture in the trademark white text are, thanks to the awkward angle, words replete with spelling errors that resemble totheark on a bad day._

_Jay starts to read hesitantly. “And this is what happened right before Jay pulled me under the brush and we -” he sighs, highlights, and hits delete._

_"Spoilsport."_

“ _Have you been drinking shots while I wasn't looking?”_

“ _Can't with this medication.” Tim's not sure quite what's gotten into him tonight, either, but he's not one to question a good thing. It's nice to think he can be the most troublesome event Jay has to contend with for a little while._

“ _If you want to make yourself useful, why don't you type the title card?”_

_Jay says it in a magnanimous kind of way and probably means nothing by it, but in moving his hands to form the words their viewers will be reading, Tim's taking the torch from him. “Uh... okay. Which number are we up to now?”_

“ _Sixty-nine,” says Jay. Tim checks to see if he's blushing even more at the potential for innuendo, and sure enough, he is. He lets Jay stew in it and writes 'Entry #69' with the straightest face he can. It's strange. Barring the occasional hack Jay's done every bit of work for this himself, for four years. Is this their equivalent of dividing chores or something? Either way, it's an honour, and now Jay's showing him the font settings he uses and explaining what some of the icons along the top of the screen do._

“ _I guess I should give you the passwords as well.” So he does, and they're not even remotely as easy to guess as Tim would've imagined. Joking about it feels like a disservice, because there's a lot he's noticed about Jay in the last month. He may on occasion show the self-preservation instinct of the average lemming, but for one, it's not like he's the only person to ever make a bad decision under pressure, and two... if Jay disregards his own well-being, it's not blind stupidity. It's rashly, tirelessly and without question putting other people ahead of himself._

“ _It only seems right. You know, in case...”_

In case what?, _Tim says, but only to himself, because he knows perfectly well what Jay's getting at. Now is not the time to dwell on it. For the next hour or so, Jay is going to think of him, and nothing else. So when he puts the laptop on the floor to wait for the video to render, Tim wraps his arms tight around him and pulls him close, brushing reassurance onto the nape of his neck with his lips._

_Jay stretches and a series of cracks to rival New Year fireworks issues from his put-upon joints. “I'm so tired of sitting like this.”_

_He's arching his back and grimacing._ _"I told you not to sit like that for too long," says Tim, gripping Jay by the shoulders and kneading the strained muscle with his thumbs. Jay laughs a little, still smiling as Tim leans over to kiss his cheek. He lifts Jay's shirt over his head and traces his knuckles over his spine and sides, feather-light at first, his touch growing firmer the more soft, stifled utterances - not yet moans - it elicits. Tim kisses the tiny hairs on the back of his neck, stood to attention in quiet display of satisfaction, and Jay shivers, easing back into him bit by bit. Tension always sits on Jay's neck and shoulders, whether from constant fear or too many nights slept at awkward angles in his car, and Tim's grinning to himself as it melts away under his own hands. He drifts up and down, massaging and stroking in turn, until his own shirt starts to prickle with heat against his skin. He tugs the buttons open roughly and pulls Jay nearer._

_Tim's left hand rests on the base of Jay's back now, the waistband of his jeans hanging loose enough to show the cleft of his ass and send Tim's imagination reeling. The hand that moves to Jay's hip seems welcome. With his lips on his throat Tim can feel the beginnings of a moan, a sultry sound that intensifies when he reaches under Jay's waistband._

_Sometimes he's hesitant; Jay doesn't offer stolen kisses when a cashier's back is turned the way he does, and he's always the one asking “Do you want to try this?”. Though it was technically Jay who first suggested, albeit indirectly, that they try to take things further. It's something to bear in mind as, nervous beyond all hope, he strokes with his middle finger at the meeting of Jay's thighs. He feels him shift and for a moment Tim's heart is in his mouth and he tries to find an apology amidst the flurry of panicked words that assail him. But Jay's stood up only to turn around and straddle him, pressing their chests close enough together to share heartbeats – elevating in time with one another. His hands close on Tim's biceps, running up to his shoulders, feeling every muscle._

_The movement takes Tim's breath away. Jay usually waits on his directing, apart from kissing him back the first time, and the day Tim pulled a tube of Astroglide and a box of condoms from his grocery bag with an expression probably resembling a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. They haven't really talked about it since then, surprise surprise, just moved the items in question from one motel bedside cabinet to another with the weight of expectation lying heavy in their luggage. Their first couple of tries were no good and painful for both of them, Jay tensing involuntarily and Tim clumsy from nerves, so they've stuck to what they know – hands, mouths, where it's easy to empathise what the other is getting out of it through prior experience with women._

_They had that conversation in a roundabout way the morning after the first time - not since college, never sober. Never with another guy, though Jay's been more receptive to the idea than him. But neither of them really know what they're doing and the idea grows more intimidating all the time, Tim left only fantasising about what it would be like to be inside him, feel his body all along his own. Loath as he is to be critical in any way, Jay's not so good with his hands. While it's better than nothing his touch is clumsy and out of time and, ultimately, a little like an itch he can't scratch. The warm enclave of his mouth feels heavenly, but to have him all the way down there feels too remote._

_But tonight's different. They kiss, Jay's soft lower lip between both of his, and Tim can't think of a single thing in all the world he'd rather be doing. He only prays that Jay is feeling the same way, and if the ardent movement of his mouth against Tim's is anything to go by, maybe the key to it all is not to plan. It's working for them so far Jay's arms are round his shoulders, fingers pressing at the top of his spine. Encouraged by the bare torso on his and the languid movement of their hips, Tim's hand wanders below his waistband again. Jay shifts forward in wordless appraisal, moaning into Tim's mouth. He's even barely touched him yet._

_Jay shuffles off his lap to lie on the bed, knees bent. The sudden loss of touch and warmth leaves Tim aching until he reaches up and pulls the together again, their mouths meeting as hands slip in hair. Tim has one hand behind Jay's head and the other supporting his weight, so settling on top of him is comfortable for both of them. Jay shifts beneath him, skin parting and meeting and making him shiver in the soft friction. His open legs tell of a grant of permission to his body and Tim's nerves keep them just kissing, paralysed by the monumental shift in circumstance they're pushing toward. Even more so when he remembers that nobody has ever done this with him before. It's the feeling of looking at a blank page, walking out over unbroken snow in the morning._ Make it good.

_Tim shrugs off his shirt, left hanging open around his sides. He moves down, planting kisses on Jay's neck, chest, stomach, navel, hips, ever so softly pinching the skin between his lips. They haven't touched each other like this before, tender and unhurried. He'd have been happy to stay rubbing his back some more and watching him unwind, but Jay is writhing now and waiting on his bravery. Tim undoes the button of his jeans and moves his fingers, brief as if incidental, over the shape of Jay's zipper. Every crease and fold in the denim rises like a mountain range in anxious awaital, Tim giving the lightest scrape of teeth to the thin skin covering his hipbones. Jay shudders and Tim takes a cue to slide his jeans away, groping his thighs apart as he goes._

_Jay lies splayed before him in only his boxers now. Smiling to himself Tim sucks gently at his growing erection through the fabric, his hands steadying Jay's hips while he twitches. It's hard not to feel shy and awkward about it all, but the convulsive response from Jay is worth it, and they're both growing more or less equally red in the face. His whole body shivers and he tears away to reach, blind and trembling, over to the bedside cabinet to retrieve the lubricant. Tim crawls back up and settles on top of him, guiding their mouths together again. Jay swallows a moan when one hand goes to massage his scalp, touching their tongues. He can do kissing. Kissing is safe. Jay's pressing the tube into his free hand and it's making his heart pound in a way that Jay pinned beneath him can surely feel._

_They break the kiss for breath, and complete the transfer with Jay looking down, concerned. "If you still want to, I mean."_

_"Yeah." Tim runs a hand over Jay's throat, following with his tongue as he leans his head back. Back to Jay's questioning of his drinking habits, he really could've done with some liquid courage, dangerous as it is with the chemical cocktail acting in his system already. Maybe this should've been planned, full stop. Or was too much anticipation where they'd gone wrong last time? Sobriety is intimidating either way. But drunk or otherwise, they'd be doing all the same things. That's kind of reassuring, and the rush of adrenaline - petrifying and wonderful - that underpins the movement of his fingers over Jay's skin, tan on pallor, is almost as intoxicating._

_Besides, their physical relationship is young and experimental and demands care and attention. Fear of hurting him again stays Tim's hand but looking at him, lying in wait, stabs with a lust powerful enough to propel him forward and ease a little of the gel out of the tube. Jay shifts his hips, sighing and rumpling the sheets. He's thrown one arm behind his head and keeps staring up at the ceiling_ . _Pulling his boxers down from the ridges of his hipbones Tim can't help but think how small he is -_ fragile _, again. He could be so easy to break with most of his ribs outlined sharply under dry skin, but the look on his face says something different. Under skittering lashes that suggest nervousness equal to Tim's, those big blue eyes are glazed in earnest affection, and the same awe he sees in Jay's face every time they've shared a bed._ He really can't believe this is happening to him _. Nobody has ever looked at Tim like that before, mostly letting their eyes pass onto someone taller or leaner or less hunched in on themselves. It's that look that hits him like it's new every single time._

_But to call Jay fragile is unfair. He'd called him brave, that first night, but right now Jay is the brave one. It's him who's willing to forgo all the ingrained macho nonsense his head's been filled with his whole life to experiment with whatever their friendship has turned into and unite their bodies like this. He's demonstrated it abundantly elsewhere, too - imagine chasing through an abandoned house in the middle of the night because you wanted to help your old friend so badly. Or maybe Jay's life was so empty before all of this that he had nothing preferable to do with his time. He's hinted as much, and Tim can do the math. Jay smiles when they're together and, just maybe, his future looks a little less bleak because of what they're doing. Sharing each other, and after all the deception secret-keeping and confusion there's nothing left between them._

Well. One thing. _For a moment the room turns the dull green of night vision and a woman's scream runs rings in the back of his mind. But now's not the time to think of that. There's nothing to be done about it. He's doing what he knows is right, and Jay will thank him for it, when they're done._

_Tim pulls himself up to a sitting position and strokes the side of his face. Jay leans into him with a smile. His skin is soft, and Tim's palm drifts to his softer lips. Jay offers light kisses to his fingertips, tilting his head back as Tim strokes his throat, shoulders, chest, down so he's pulling his underwear away and off and he bites his lip in excitement. How did he ever think of him as anything but beautiful?_

_Focusing on Jay's face and not looking at what his hand's doing, Tim takes a deep breath and eases a finger inside him. There's a gasp, surprised and far away, but after staying still for a second Jay relaxes and falls pliant to his touch. Tim keeps the movement careful, explorative, rotating his wrist and letting the natural pathways of Jay's body dictate his direction. Jay turns his face to the side and Tim searches for clues as to what does and doesn't work. There's one spot he reaches when he crooks his finger that makes Jay arch his back, his eyes shooting open, so Tim stays there, massaging him lightly. Jay begins to move his hips against his hand and he has to fight to keep from laughing. He is genuinely enjoying however this feels for him._

_Encouraged, Tim works a second finger inside him. He's eased himself forward so that he's crouched over Jay, who fights against gravity to throw his arms around Tim's neck and bring them together for a kiss. Tongues move like tides as Jay moans into his mouth, still tasting faintly salted from another dinner of chips with a side of chips. When his hand reaches between them and makes for the zipper of Tim's jeans, his stomach hitches and he gasps, the sound crushed into their kiss. A hand slips between his thighs. Jay's groping around clumsily, Tim nearly out of his mind from confused multitasking and growing need, so he takes the matter into his own hands and gets the zipper down, the other reaching up to run along Jay's jawline. Jay takes him in hand, trying to move in time with him. Consuming waves of pleasure wash over him, over the nerves. Jay's touch is firmer and surer this time and, growing between them, Tim can feel that his desire is no less than his own._

_The warm wrap of palm surrounding him combined with the heat and pressure around his fingers is not an aid to Tim's patience; enough for him to coax a third digit into Jay, as careful as he can. Jay responds by deepening their kiss, begging Tim to keep him quiet, and upping the speed of the flexes from his hand. The rest of the room whirls away from him. Jay moves again. Tim flinches and holds back for fear of making him uncomfortable, but he's on another level when he works out Jay is scrabbling around on the cabinet for a condom. He's trying to open the packet with his teeth. Tim lets him have a couple of endearing failed attempts before sparing him further blushes and taking it from him. He's trembling enough through the deadly mixer of anticipation and sheer nerves to be rendered almost as incompetent, the plastic slippery and elusive in his shaking hand. He's ready to throw it down and give up, but when he puts aside the awkwardness to meet Jay's eyes, nothing has changed. He's still looking at him like he's magical, with a trembling of his lip that reveals he is just as afraid, but wants it just as badly anyway._ Okay _.  So this isn't playing out like a porn movie. It isn't rehearsed or planned and they aren't perfect, and maybe that's why it means so much more._

_Jay sits up to rest his forehead on Tim's. He's laughing. "There's always something that goes wrong."_

_Tim withdraws his fingers and between them they manage to remove the wrapper and roll the condom over Tim's straining length. Just that intermittent and clumsy touch sends a fork of lightning right through him, touching Jay's nose with his and pulling him in for a messy kiss. Jay's hands – lovely, long-fingered hands – are on his knees, the fingers of one pulling at the denim barrier;_ you as well _. Feeling overdressed, Tim slips them off as quick as he can and that's it. There's nothing left between them. Jay reaches down to coat Tim with more gel from the tube he throws nonchalantly to the floor. They embrace, with Jay's legs around his waist and his heart hammering in time._

_"Are you sure about this?"_

_Jay nods, and Tim senses his lips pull into a smile with his face buried in his shoulder._

_He brushes his spine and there's still tension corded in the muscles there, but he's shivering at the lightest touch. "You don't owe me anything, okay? I... I don't want to do anything to hurt you, or make you uncomfortable."_

_"I know you don't."_

_"Nothing you don't want to do. I promise. Tell me to stop and I'll stop."_

_"Tim?"_

_"Yes?"_

_Jay draws away from him, raising an eyebrow. "Get on with it."_

_"Jay... now's really not the time to start quoting Monty Python."_

_"I wasn't! If I was I'd have said it like..." and he drops his voice an octave to repeat it, while Tim drops his head into his hands._

_He's intensely aware of being here with nothing at all separating his nakedness from Jay's gaze except for the length of plastic stretched over his dick. They might as well be sitting under a spotlight, until Jay takes his hands from his eyes._ _There's a moment of uncomfortable silence, before Jay blows a raspberry noise and Tim joins in a second later._ We're so fucking ridiculous. _He kisses Jay's forehead, slow and almost reverent. They're still laughing together as Jay lies back and spreads his legs; Tim pulls the covers up and over them and lowers himself. His hands wander over bony sides and hips, smiling as Jay's lips part in anticipation. His chest and shoulders are still tensed, and Tim only hopes his quivering is as much to do with desire as anything else. A guiding hand slips between Tim's legs, positioning him. With soft, consoling kisses to his neck, Tim pushes forward from his hips, slow and nervous beyond anything, gripping the sheets to steady himself._

_Beneath him and around him and filling all his senses, Jay makes a startled sound he's never heard before - halfway between a whimper and a moan, betraying neither pain nor pleasure but complete overwhelm. He lies hyperventilating, head thrown back, eyes and mouth wide open, and Tim bites his lip waiting for guidance. The constriction that surrounds him is breathtaking, tearing air from him in ragged gasps and overpowering most other thought. Not the worry about hurting him, though. It freezes him, even as all his hair stands on end and the pit of his stomach starts to burn._

_He can feel_ everything else _, too. Jay's sides and hips meeting his, the heavy beating of his heart, his rapid breath thrumming in his throat, their legs tangling in shivers. Jay lies grimacing and breathless with shock beneath him, and Tim's too afraid to move, every second warping into stretches of agonised confusion. There's every chance he's hurt him, and the idea is horrifying - there's no joy in this for him if Jay's not taking the same pleasure from it, or suffering through it in a misguided effort to try and please him. But at the same time the thought of withdrawing from him into a room that's suddenly grown colder is unbearable._

 _He gathers himself enough to clear his throat, stroking the back of Jay's thigh and offering placating pecks to his bottom lip. "You okay?"_ Please be okay, Jay, please be okay...

_Jay chokes out a strangled “Yeah”, though he's still frowning, and reaches to sweep Tim's dampened hair from his brow. The other slips shakily to rest just beneath his spine. Signal enough that stopping is the last thing he wants. With a deep breath to pace himself Tim begins to move, gently inching into him. Jay moans, still struggling for air, but saying with the hand on his ass that he's only waiting. It's still uncomfortable for him, that much is clear. Tim stays still to let him accustom himself, though the torment of waiting is intensified with the deft fingers that rove over his scalp and neck. Jay's right hand stays firmly in place, guiding him deeper._

_It's bizarre to think of the first time they'd met, awkwardly shuffling around each other on campus, or of their uneasy interactions from but a few months ago. To think they'd one day end up like this, as close as two can be, in a... whatever it is. 'Relationship' is a scary word. Arrangement is too formal, but to look at Jay and feel him there's no way to continue passing it off as distorted friendship, either. To do so would be a disservice to the way every day became bearable when he thinks of taking Jay to bed at the end of it._

_It's almost painful as he struggles not to move too fast and do him any harm. The sensation goes beyond any anonymous drunken fumbling he can shakily recall from college._ Way _beyond. Keeping his pace steady and truncating every movement hits with the shock of braking too sharply, until Jay begins to move against him. He's ready. Tim lets go a little, moving into him in long, slow strokes. Mouthed directly into his ear is Jay's laboured breath. He's enjoying this. He's actually enjoying it. The same movements from his pelvis give both of them the same pleasure, at the same time. Jay's holding him close and kissing along his collarbone, lavishing his tongue over his neck, his breath hitching when Tim pushes forward._

_"Sometimes I still can't believe you really want me."_

_It takes a while to process the words, foreign and out of step with what he's feeling. And possibly the saddest thing he's ever heard. Tim kisses him, holding the back of his head and mouthing his lust to him like it's the most important thing he's ever done. "Answer enough?"_

_"It's not you. I just kept thinking -"_

_"Don't think, Jay, just feel it." Experimentally, drunk on nerves, he builds his pace and drive a little. Jay's back arches to let out a moan - he's writhing and gripping Tim by the hips, moving around to find the best angle for himself. At some point, they've moved down the bed to the point where Jay's head is just missing the pillow. Not that he's noticed. Now he's pushing on Tim's chest, telling him to lean up. Tim braces himself on his elbows and in doing so loses the ability to silence him with a kiss. Their overnight neighbours and their delicate sensibilities flash before his eyes for all of, oh, about five seconds, before another surge of urgent tingling courses right through him and all he can or could want to see is Jay tossing his head beneath him. Tim yearns to hear exactly how much gratification he's giving him, and in turn, his own voice is rising. Jay ought to know just how this feels for him, too._

_He's stammering a word. What, Tim can't tell. He lens down and brushes Jay's temple with his lips and looks at him questioningly, falling still. They weren't smart enough or organised enough to think of any kind of code in case Tim went too far too soon. If Jay's hurt he'll never trust himself to go to bed with him again; and still, he can't bear to think of stopping and letting the chill of the room settle into him, not now._ Jay, speak to me _..._

 _Jay can't meet his eyes in turn, but he takes a breath in and repeats himself, as assertive as he can manage. "_ Harder _."_

_With an incoherent cry of pleasure, Tim does as instructed. Any worries that had hovered around in his head - hurting him, not being able to last long enough to please him - are dissipating, melting away. Intolerable desire for something just beyond reach has cooled to a tender, low-burning passion. Big blue eyes half-close in ecstasy. Jay's beautiful and when his legs wrap around Tim's waist, he's seeing stars. To think that maybe, just maybe, this could feel even half as good for Jay as it does for him. The thin plaster walls of the room, the darkness beyond it, everything fades to meaningless scene dressing in the background. It's mutual. A joint effort. And like nothing else he's felt before._

_Tim is some distance out of the bounds of his usual level of athleticism and growing more winded by the second. The muscles in his arms and pelvis are starting to burn as he tries to steer his body from the very thing he's driving it towards, in the name of dragging as many sighs and moans from Jay as possible. Sharp nails dig into his shoulder, and he shrugs off Jay's hand with a hiss of pain. Jay stutters a “Sorry” and grabs the sheet beside him instead, tearing one corner from the mattress. Tim's groin and stomach roil, a rubber band tensed and ready to snap, but he fights tooth and nail to keep going and keep Jay moving underneath him. He's gripping the headboard for leverage now, crying out with every thrust, flushed and throwing himself back onto Tim faster than he can keep time with. Tim strokes over his elongated throat, his undulating torso. The touch is too much; Jay, pale and slender in the moonlight, is stretched out open and lost in the pleasure he's giving him. Gone are the hunched shoulders and bristling nerves and sidelong glances at anything and everything. He's in a better place, and all because of Tim. All the colour has drained out of the world except for his blue eyes, trusting and glistening and wide with surprise. He's beautiful and Tim can't bear to look at him anymore._

Then I'm all yours.

_Jay is quaking all over with the sound of climax just audible at the back of his throat, familiar but more intense than Tim can relate to. His whole body is shaking, slick with sweat, and it's fucking incredible. He's reddening prettily with overexertion. Panting. Knowing that bringing him to his absolute height this way was technically possible was one thing but to see him so far gone, fighting so hard to force air into his lungs as his whole body fills with the same pleasure that he's giving to Tim, that they're giving to each other – it's more than he could have imagined. Tim's spurred on by the jagged cries let loose into the darkness and the toes curling involuntarily on his back, ignoring the pain in his arms, until a shudder and a final lopsided cry signal the end. Jay falls placid and spent beneath him, pulling him down, holding him close,_

_His whole body is burning but Tim leans into the embrace, cresting the uphill struggle to join Jay at the peak. He's murmuring vague affections into Tim's neck and stroking blindly at his back and sides. Every muscle in his body is on fire, every nerve alight with need and awe, and Jay appears in a haze beneath his half-closed eyes. As Jay regains his breath he looks around, surprised, like he's woken from a dream, or landed somewhere soft after falling. Their eyes meet, and there's that same look of adoration and spent gratitude and that's it. Tim snaps his head to the side. The winding pressure inside him falls away, shifting like a weight from his back, and it's just blissful emptying into the night, into Jay, until all he can breathe is the heady scent of new masculine sweat from Jay, Jay, who's feeling just what he's feeling._

_He's just enough strength left to pull away from Jay and roll to the side to let him get his breath back. From somewhere he can't fathom he finds the energy to tie off the condom and throw it away, before he collapses onto his back, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. The fog is lifting, the sound of air conditioning and comings and goings along the corridor drifts back into the world, and suddenly the place is too quiet without the banging of the headboard, the windows rattling in the frame, the sound of damp skin on damp skin - notable only in their absence. Anyone in the next room would've heard everything. They must have been yelling pretty loudly too, by the end, and... talking?_ 'Just feel it'?  Jesus Christ.

_Jay's lying on his side, one arm thrown over the blankets, looking down with a coy smile and avoiding his eyes. He's still winded and shaking. Tim reaches to place a reassuring hand on his exposed shoulder, thumbing the hollow ridges around his collarbone. They share a chaste kiss on the lips, eyes closed, and Tim sits up with a groan of effort to reach for his lighter and cigarettes. Food wrapping and loose change rains onto the floor, scattered by unsteady hands, enough that lighting up takes no less than four attempts. When it's going he lies back, and Jay shuffles over to nestle into the nook in his shoulder. Leaden legs cross over each other. They're coated in fluids varied and plentiful enough that showering is probably a wise idea right about now, but holding himself up on a slippery floor as more than he has strength left for – especially for Jay, who's still gasping for air. Tim smokes with the arm that's wrapped around Jay and lets his left meander along Jay's torso to his hip - he's still sensitive enough to shudder and tense his stomach muscles at the slightest touch._

_"I don't ever want to move from here."_

_Tim laughs._ You took the words right out of my mouth. _"Sure would make a lot of things simpler."_

 _A light rain is falling on the window in another world. Tim is worn to the bones, feeling himself deplete with every breath in and out, but there's nowhere else he'd want to go anyway. For once, there's nothing else he'd rather be doing and nowhere else he'd rather be._ This is bliss _._

_Does Jay have any idea what he's feeling for him now? Gratitude, protection, some fancier words he can't bring to mind. The kind that set a lump to his throat just at the thought of Jay sleeping anywhere but beside him. He can only hope he's feeling the same. Could he, really, for someone who's kind of prickly and bitter and awkward to be around most of the time? The blankets have pooled around their hips and they lie still a while, watching the curling rise of exhaled smoke dancing in the light from the abandoned laptop. Jay beside him is unbearably warm and damp, but pushing him away is the far less appealing option._

“ _So you've really never... with a guy?”_

_Tim shakes his head, registering with a certain smugness the surprise in his voice. “Never much wanted to.”_

_Jay smiles against his skin. “Only me.”_

_The nicotine is starting to take effect, augmenting the weighty velvet calm already settling over him. Jay seems to transmit only about half of what he wants to say to his mouth from his brain, speaking in a puzzle with missing pieces. Much as the moment should be left as it is, hearing his voice in conjunction with the feel of his breathing and shifting works as a reminder that he's_ there _. They've arrived somewhere entirely new, shared it, worked through their trepidation together._

_"When this is done, we can do whatever we want.”_

_Tim doesn't have any suggestions. Sometimes he'll picture the two of them sticking together, but it inevitably leads to a train of thought questioning whether there'll be an afterwards, and for now Tim just wants to keep it at the door. Live in the moment, like all his therapists tell him to._

“ _Just – no, never mind."_

_Tim strokes the small of his back, encouraging. "What were you going to say?"_

_"Nothing, I... just... don't forget me again."_

_Tim finds himself tensing and sucking harder on his cigarette. He kisses Jay's forehead, and that's all the guarantee he can offer. He's been on the receiving end of broken promises too many times to say anything he can't be sure of. He wants to be – how on Earth could he ever forget tonight? From the euphoric rubber all his limbs have turned to, to the little shivers that run over Jay as he strokes his spine to get him off to sleep, it's too much to just lose to time. Too real. His chest is heavy, like what he feels for Jay is etched on his heart beyond where any wind can weather it._

_But he also passed through college barely able to recall any of it. He's on tape charging his former friend with a knife and only remembers the footage, not the real-time play of events. Were those emotions and sensations any less intense?_

Please, _he says to himself, to the shadows creeping in around them,_ just leave me this one. _But then it's not that simple. To be in a place of safety and joy is intensified fifty-fold by the counterpoint the last few hellish years have provided, and to only have this memory at a disconnect, a message in a bottle with no return address, would rob it of its potency. So it's a trade-off, then. Keeping both this perfect twilight and the painful ones that surround it, for context and contrast._

 _He stubs out his cigarette and pulls Jay closer._ I think I can do that.

 


	12. Duet

_You haven't seen elephants, kings, or Peru_  
 _"I'm happy to say I had better to do"_  
 _What about China, have you seen the Great Wall?_  
 _"All walls are great if the roof doesn't fall"_  
 _"The man you will marry, the home you will share"_  
 _To be honest, I really don't care_  
 _I've seen what I was and I know what I'll be_  
 _I have seen it all, there is no more to see_  
\- Björk and Thom Yorke

"But there's so much left for you to feel! You'll fall in love..."

 _Tried it_.

"... and don't you want to know what it feels like to hold your own child in your arms?"

 _Nothing and no-one in all the infinite wonder of the cosmos could persuade me to even consider procreating_.

But Jay doesn't say it. He stays still, staring at the patches of chipped paint on the off-white wall, the closest thing to decoration in here. The woman sat opposite him is a bird chirruping at some time in the morning when no earthly creature has any right to be awake – irritating, yes, but requiring no response. He's still processing information flung at him in a blur, but this deeply misguided twittering is so entertaining he's slowly becoming enraptured by her protestations that the world has a lot to offer. It's not like he's missing out on anything; this panoramic view of the cafeteria, plastic chairs and peeling paint, doesn't change day to day.

There's enough empty tables. Why didn't she choose one of those and leave him be? All he wants to do is eat this soup - or, rather, get eating this soup over with. There's a slightly higher chance they'll let him out sooner if he gets through a whole bowl, so he steels himself and raises the spoon to his lips again. He burned his tongue on his first sip and it's killed what taste this vegetable mulch had to begin with, its texture still faintly grained in reminiscence of the granulated form it began life as. He's sweating in the effort to get it down. A bread roll sits on the side of the bowl, untouched but for one bite that went down like a lump of rubber in his gut. Even the liquid is too heavy, sitting inside him, painfully aware of his fist-sized stomach stretching to accommodate it.

His nose streams, mingling with the beads of perspiration on his face. He's pouring from every orifice. It's going to drip into the bowl below him. _I'm done_. He pushes the tray away and slumps back into the plastic seat, crossing his arms over his bursting stomach to hold it together.

 _All I ever wanted was to be left alone_. It doesn't seem like such a huge or unreasonable request – what, exactly, do people think they're missing out on? His scintillating conversation? And this much was true even before he found himself hunted, going through the school-work-chores-food motions just to have a few minutes alone at the end of the day without having to worry about anything. There's no chance for that here. Not with his psychiatrist, a wiry stick of a woman whose tiny frame seems well suited to getting into places she isn't supposed to, poking her nose in and the cameras everywhere and Mary here trying her best to bring him back into the flock. The things he could tell her, if he chose.

Such irony - stupid Jay ends up knowing more than every single person around him. The other patients - _inmates_ , his subconscious keeps volunteering - couldn't begin to fathom the things he's seen. The things he's felt... and maybe that's it. He's truly felt everything there is to feel. He's dried up, wrung of tears, and now everything's just funny in the most half-hearted way possible.

 _Hunted_ seems apt now he finds himself accosted by Mary from two rooms over. She's taken a special interest in him, for some reason. With her smooth and glowing skin she can't be a whole lot older than he is but she exemplifies the kind of pushy Christian enthusiasm usually favoured by prior generations. At least they have the good grace to hand you a pamphlet and let you on your merry way.

She'd been a new mystery at first. What was someone so warmly bathed in the cleansing light of the Lord doing in the psych ward? He got his answer when he watched her reach up to pin a Post-It on the notice board in the hallway. She wears chaste, long-sleeved shirts with necklines fastened higher than the rosary beads she never takes off, and the sleeves rolled up her arms to uncover fading cigarette burns. _Mystery solved_.

Unfortunately, her interest in him shows no sign of waning. He's been spared any talk of living in sin with another man, assuming she knows. Tim hasn't been here, certainly not as long as Jay's been awake, so he's saved from blushing explanations of his living situation. Which is something to be grateful for, if he's generous, but she won't stop telling him all the other things he's supposed to be grateful for and she doesn't have a _clue_.

Mary's holy head is crowned by a mop of windswept dark blonde hair and Jay has to suppress a scream every time he catches it in the corner of his eye.

Still, if he gains nothing else from his little sojourn in this ugly magnolia labyrinth, it's an insight into why you'd prepare for what may come after death. His own personal attitude to it has always been best and simply stated with 'don't know, don't care' – life gave him enough to worry about, and anything that potentially came after was a bridge he was happy to cross when he came to it. Now, though, it's making some sense.

This imprisonment wasn't supposed to happen. He shouldn't be here, there, or anywhere. On waking he registered the blank walls, the bottle green curtain around him, the one starched pillow propping up his aching neck, and decided it was pretty anticlimactic for an afterlife. He tossed and turned trying to get comfortable in a hospital gown itchier than the broken skin on his wrists. Pretty dull, really, but perhaps such would be a fitting end for someone who doesn't deserve heaven but who's already done their time in hell.

The more frantic requests for towels and machines going 'ping' he heard, the less convinced he became of his reborn status, and he put a hand to his heart to find a beat. It was there, still bitterly pumping life around him. _How disappointing_. And before he knew it he was answering useless questions catering more to the ego and pocket of the professional asking than they did him and his mental state. They'll have fun trying to piece together a profile from his grunts and shrugs, but it's time to think tactically. What do they want to hear to convince them he's ready to go and contribute to society?

 _Just find something and cut it out of me, or let me_ go.

He's caught hairline cracks of conversation about nerve damage, torn tendons, all rounded off by that word again; _lucky_ . What a thought. If his future looked bleak before, there's truly nothing waiting for him on the outside, not now. So much for the one decision he wasn't able to regret. He's branded. The scar tissue on his arms, peeling and wavering like layers of dried vegetation, will sit red and raised for most likely the rest of his life. Who would ever hire him? Tim would feel it, too, every time he tried to hold his hand or take him by the arm. _Like that's ever going to happen again_. What Tim must be thinking. Everything he's been through – the sickness, the abandonment and incarceration that made up his childhood, the hell of working retail on top of everything else that's been thrown their way – and he's never so much as attempted anything so cowardly. Not that he's spoken of, anyway. Jay doesn't need to hear it to know Tim never wants to see him again, let alone hold his hand.

Typical he'd manage to fuck up even ridding the planet of his useless existence. He runs a fingernail under the bandage covering his left wrist. There's damage to his arteries that would make another attempt easier. But there's the next few days in here to get through first. He slumps back in the chair, strength to sit up wilting away with the thought of more bowls of reconstituted soup to consume under eagle-eyed surveillance. Or maybe that's just the drips he's been on. His bandages, changed every day, might as well be shackles for all the say he has in any of this. It's bad enough he was in emergency for three days lost to time; more life wasted. He's been out long enough that sleep isn't coming easily, but every second of the day his eyes are heavy and his limbs aching and his mind won't focus on what he wants it to. He can't do anything. But then, there's nothing to do in here.

Nothing to do but be watched. It's not the impartial gaze of a camera, comforting in its capacity for seeing all that he couldn't; _I've got your back, buddy_. In here he's subjected to incisive stares and covert glances, people's selfish little rumours and suppositions, curiosity not for him but over him. This is Jay as circus freak, a gladiator fending off attacking inquisition. They've all seen the cuts he came in with. The only question is, which way will the thumb be pointing at the end of the week?

His throat is thick and dirty from the soup. He coughs to dislodge the taste. It's a little jolt to the half-asleep stupor he finds himself in. Mary's been talking the whole time. He looks at his hands and they're scoured. _No idea how that happened_. He rubs the bandage in lieu of a sleeve to fiddle with. Tim and Brian only brought T-shirts for him when they dropped off some clothes, whenever that might have been.

"I'll keep you in my prayers, Jay."

It's all he can do not to snort a laugh in her face. He sinks back, eyes closed, and the table rocks as her weight is lifted. What's the prayer for? It can't be that he'll find what he's looking for. _I want a drink. I want to be left alone._ Surely she's not praying for his soul. If such a thing exists, he's pretty certain he unwittingly exchanged it for tapes a long, long time ago. Or maybe it's in pieces on a dirty broken floor where he should've died. No. She's praying for herself. She's doing her good deed for the day and moving on.

There's a touch to his shoulder, soft as snow, but enough to jolt his heart anyway. Mary has been replaced by his consultant again. Jay checks the clock - three in the afternoon. Time for his appointment already, and at least one half of the equation looks happy about it. _What did she say her name was_? Maria. Marina. Something along those lines. Or is he confusing her with Mary?

"Good afternoon, Jay. How are you feeling?"

 _How do you think_? He shrugs. "Okay, I guess. Kind of tired."

She has no choice but to sit with him and listen to whatever he comes out with and keep trying. He has the power over how difficult her job is right in the palm of his hand. Is she going to have a good day or a bad day? It's almost fun. While he's toyed with the idea of being as reticent as possible for the sake of scant amusement in this cell, his current strategy is just to say what he has to to be taken out of here. She's being paid not to give up on him, so the only escape he has is hinged on his ability to talk his way out of it. _Great_ . The one thing he's least equipped for. But needs must; the sooner he gets out, the sooner he can get a drink, the sooner he can be left alone. What he'll do afterwards is anyone's guess but he has to _leave_ and get away from all these eyes on him. If only he had some idea where to get the energy. His jaw is locked by exhaustion and his eyes, still fogged from sleep, can't reach further than the end of the hall.

"I'll get your tray taken away. Looks like you've managed a little more today - well done!"

 _Get me a medal_.

They meet on a couch just outside the cafeteria. It's a fantastic venue for voyeurism, with most of the other patients flocking around to listen in. If there's nothing to everyone's taste on TV the ward doesn't offer a whole lot of entertainment otherwise, admittedly, but audience participation works like a muzzle where Jay's personal life is concerned. He keeps his head down and his pace brisk when someone else is in session, of course. He has the basic decency to do so... but it's not just that. If he has to hear from all of these people who think they've had a bad time because they're divorcing or their parents didn't get them the right colour iPod or they're stressed by the school they actively chose to go to, he's going to bawl on the floor, and then he's going to tell them a lot of things that will ensure he stays where he is for a long time yet.

He takes a seat next to her, watching the vultures gather in the corner of his eye.

"If you're feeling up to it, I'd like to try and finish off the psychiatric evaluation today."

Psychiatric evaluation? _The word 'fucked' springs immediately to mind_. She's shuffling crisp sheets of paper, rustling too loudly and slipping over her wedding ring too quickly for him to see the questions and plan ahead. She reassembles the clipboard with a decidedly final click and turns to him.

"First and foremost, let's not beat about the bush; are you thinking of attempting again?"

They're not allowed dental floss in here. Carl the poet from the room adjacent told him so yesterday and he's been chuckling to himself ever since. When was the last time he brushed his teeth? He runs his tongue over the film that's gathered under his gums since and finds a sliver of vegetable skin lodged between two incisors. A shudder zig-zags right through him; his breath must smell horrible. He picks at the wrapping of white gauze on his wrists, until he catches the doctor's worried squint and spreads them flat on his knees.

_How did it ever come to this?_

If somebody had just _said_ life was hard, he wouldn't have a problem. If he'd been taken aside as a child and given words to the effect of "Sorry, Jay, but you _can't_ be anything you want to – no, not even if you trust in yourself - and you're going to hurt and you're going to be disappointed, but there's a few small things along the way to make it worth it", then that would be okay. He'd have known what to expect and prepared. He wouldn't be sat here amidst the slumberous mutterings of his neighbours, everyone else who didn't get what they were promised, and the smell of starch stalking him like a guilty conscience.

The chemical cleanliness infests every nook and cranny, around him and in him and on him. Even his dressed wounds smell of it. Moving his arms with any kind of force still sends sharp pain rocketing up his muscles, but at least no-one has to look at it. That's something. He snorts, and masks it as sneeze. They just wrap him up in white and his body is wiped clean, no evidence of messy suicide and none of this ever happened. If only. It's about as effective as censoring a slur by starring out the middle two letters. If his body is a clean slate his head is still a mess of half-erased chalk instructions and spray-paint insults scrawled at random.

There's _something_ soothing about this place, though - it's cleaned, the beds are changed, the cobweb remnants of pain that inhabited his room washed away with the coffee cup stains and stray hairs. Kind of like a hotel room.

But back to the matter at hand – the world outside. "I'm not making _plans_ to..."

Jay shifts his feet on the ground. _Who am I kidding?_ She doesn't miss a beat. Of course she doesn't. She's been trained to sniff out a 'but' with the skill and speed of a hunting hound. "But? We can't help you if you're not upfront, Jay."

 _I don't think there's anything you could do to help anyway_. He straightens his back and tries to weed out the information she needs to think he's okay. Would she even buy that he's suddenly enthusiastic about life after a brush with death? That he's seen the light at the end of the tunnel – and the connotations of that metaphor make him shudder, as though he's back stumbling under the damp concrete and wishing his footfalls wouldn't echo so. His current goal is to make it home before the next group therapy session, the mere mention of the term 'group therapy' freezing him in terror. Not that it would be wholly removed from this little sojourn on the couch, with most of the other patients hovering around pretending to look at something on the noticeboard.

There's a litany going on to his left, but it blurs into a haze of simple sentiments he's heard before. It's not too late. Little things count. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Phrases that fall so easily from the tongue, yet hold all the weight of feathers next to the mess of bruised feelings and missing identification ready for him in the house he calls his home. She'll have to do a lot better than this if she wants him to see his next birthday, suggest something concrete for him to hold onto, stop assuming what's true for her is true for him as well.

 _Show, not tell_.

“Pardon, Jay?”

Did one of the other patients call to her? No. She's looking right at him. _Oh, great. I went and actually said it_ . At no point did he give his mouth permission to open, and he needs to be more guarded if he's going to make it out. _Group therapy on Monday_ . He rubs his eyes. Speaking in disconnected vagueries is only going to get him committed longer. But it's so _tiring_ to even give a positive thought space, and the sentiment falls by the wayside somewhere in the struggle to remember the words.

"They said it in a creative writing class I took. It's the most effective way to tell a story, or something."

She laughs. "So, I have demonstrate to you that life is worth living. Okay. I'll get thinking. I suppose I could tell you about some of my other patients who felt like their lives were over and turned it around, but you'd just start looking for reasons why you're different, wouldn't you?" She gives a curt, self-satisfied nod to his blank expression. "But I could also tell you that... most of those people? They were just the same as you, once. Always thinking _they_ were the exception, because what was happening in their heads made them feel so low in themselves they couldn't imagine any place that would have them.”

She waits a couple of beats and turns from him, like she's hoping he'll volunteer acknowledgement of her detective skills. “There's something fundamentally arrogant about depression, I think. I'm not saying so about depressed people, don't think that. It's more that it takes on a life of its own if you leave it alone too long.”

Jay smirks. “Like mould.”

“Yeah. I guess that's one way of looking at it. But it does grow in your consciousness until you think you're different, you're completely set apart from all the others, there's simply no place for you.” She shuffles her papers and smiles. “So I guess it's my job to show it that it's not so damn special."

_Well, I'd be really interested to know how many of those previous inmates watched their best friends die, went on the run from inhuman stalkers, and lost four years of life they'll never get back._

"So... I think what you need more than anything is a plan. Something you really care about that you can work towards. You say you're a writer? Have you been doing it much lately?"

"I don't have much to say."

His nose is itching. It started itching when Alex walked in front of him for the last time, and didn't let up when he stumbled away and fell on the ground with all his other senses running away from him. Before his eyes the green of the trees outside the window smears into the white walls, the whole scene a kaleidoscope of colours falling together. And then it fades to dull grey lit by one beam of sickly sunshine. He's back. Falling dust dances in narrow beams of light. Footsteps behind him. He's taking a slug to the stomach, crumpling on the floor, split in half by a bar of red-hot iron. He's numb from head to toe, the pain a ghost he remembers and the shaking something that's happening in the world outside of him. The tearing in his gut is like nothing else, fire and blunt force, and yet the need to scratch the tip of his nose overpowers everything else. It makes his eyes water, knocks the breath from him, then his diaphragm is spasming, trying to catch up for lost oxygen. He's pulling his hand away from his stomach all red, knowledge hitting like a ton of bricks that it's _his life_ bleeding out and pooling on the ground in a lake around him, then he's back in Tim's bathroom trying not to stain the carpets, and he hits the cold ground outside, the moon a flash above him.

Back in the real world, she's looking at him with pursed lips. "Is everything alright, Jay? You're shaking."

He crams a fist into his mouth because no, it's not, and he's crying, but he _can't say_. He'll be here longer if she knows. She'll think he's gross for sweating so much, but he can't say. It's like Tim and Brian tell him – he can't keep going back. She'll only look at him with that withering pity and reel off a list of things she thinks he can do but he can't.

"Jay? What's the matter?"

"My nose itched. I thought I was going to sneeze. It's nothing."

"That's all? You know, most triggers are very mundane things. A smell, a certain song. Don't pretend you're okay when there might be something we could do to make this a safer space for you."

 _Does she know?_ She must do. She knows she's dealing with a trauma patient and she'll know what to look for. If she won't drop the subject, at least he can stop her vetting every song that comes on the radio. "It's when I was shot," he says, hesitant. "My nose was itching.”

“Do you think about it a lot?”

“I don't think about it at all.”

“But you're having these flashbacks anyway, aren't you? Like I said, it can be perfectly ordinary things that set it off, and it can happen if you're not working through the trauma properly.”

Jay is on the edge of his seat in anticipation of the punchline where she tells him to get his head out of the past. Instead, she places her notes and clipboard on the seat beside her and folds her arms, leaning into him. There's no expectation in her face that he move on and stop looking over his shoulder – only that he tell her more.

 _I should probably find out her name_. “It's funny, even when my hands were covered in blood all I could think about was trying to scratch my nose, but I didn't want to get blood all over my face, and..."

It's the itching he remembers more than anything. Like the first time he kissed Tim – behind the rush of nerves and the distant shout of 'Geronimo!' from the most irreverent part of his subconscious, all he could focus on was how kissing a chain smoker didn't taste nearly as bad as people made it out to. Never mind the fact that he finally made it with his college crush. Or that he was letting a man who'd beaten him to the ground on more than one occasion whip his shirt off and touch him. Getting into bed with the closest thing he had left to a friend. Maybe if he'd thought a little more on the last point, he'd be going home to a house full of smiles instead.

_What was that she was saying about little things? Why wasn't I listening?_

"You can stop there if you're not ready to talk about it."

Jay nods. “Are we done for today?”

“Not yet. How would you describe your living situation right now, Jay? Were you looking for work? Do you have any kind of financial support in place?”

"What's happened to your boyfriend today?" says a gruff voice off to the side. A man with more wrinkling tattoos than body fat on his exposed arms is peering over the scene on the couch and sneering under his greying blonde moustache. For a small man, he seems to take up a lot of space, the others keeping back to leave a two-foot radius around him. _What was that about the cruelty of keeping wild animals in zoos?_ Jay folds his arms and tucks his bandaged wrists into the crease of his elbows, huddling in on himself as though a T-shirt with not _quite_ as many holes than a fishing net and about as much shape left to it is going to protect him.

"Fuckin' sick, asking me to share a ward with someone like that."

"That's enough for today, Steve." The doctor flicks her pen like a magic wand.

The spell works, as Steve the walrus shuffles away in the direction of the bedrooms, but not before the wrinkled ad rotten-toothed maw opens and flaps again. "Just move him in with the ladies.”

Steve was in here before him, but for a short enough period that he only grunted when Jay asked how to get to the cafeteria. Or was he only trying to shun the unclean? Jay's taken stock of the cords of wiry tendon bulging in his arms and the bruises smudged over his knuckles – the phrase 'homicidal intent' has passed to and fro in whispers – but there's something sad and sorry about the tired white skin stretched between the inked skulls and roses.

It's always bemused him that any variant of 'girl' can be used as an insult. Jay's had girls beating him on the running track and puzzling out math problems before he did. But this guy has no clue what he's talking about. _Unless you know how it feels to be able to incapacitate another man by basically lying there and letting him get on with it, then shut the fuck up_ . Jay hasn't felt unmanned when he and Tim have been together physically, not once. Surely he's... more of a man if he's willing to enjoy every part of his body like that? He's entertained a notion of swinging his hips as he walks to find Steve's bed and suggesting in great detail why he should try it, but nagging self-preservation instinct he hasn't quite killed off stays his hand. _Hips, even_.

Really, though. Amazing, incredible, fantastic, unbelievable - those were all words he'd maybe use to describe a pizza. He's squandered them and has nothing left to articulate the feeling of taking Tim inside of him. All his nerves lighting up one by one, like signals, in places he hadn't even known existed. Urgent tingling washing over his whole body in waves. In the here and now Jay sits on his hands and coughs to clear his throat, wary of the thin denim covering his legs and the dangers of enjoying the recollection a little too much.

 _How does he know?_ Tim must have been here if he has clothes to wear but it's not like him to reveal details of what their relationship has become, and especially not to strangers who look like they're posing for a Metallica fans pin-up calendar every day of their lives. Not that they've ever discussed what they should and shouldn't tell people. It wasn't supposed to mean anything at first, but then it did, and now?

 _There's nothing degrading about it. He loves me_.

If Tim was here now Steve would be lying flat on the floor. Tim's taken on far worse in the past, and all for him. Once the foe was vanquished he'd shove anyone left looking on out of the way and put his arms around him, making so very certain he's alright that Jay has point out he was just fine before all the fussing. _Wouldn't he?_

Once, maybe. The bandages are digging into his wrists enough that he can feel his rising pulse throbbing around them. “I live with a couple of... friends.”

“Are they the ones who've been trying to see you?”

“When were they here?” His breath turns quick and shallow. Maybe Tim couldn't get the time off work. There could be all kinds of reasons Tim hasn't been to see him since he came to and it's just paranoia telling him it's time to start packing his things. Supposedly he was ripping the drips out of his arms when he first woke up, and broken blood vessels bloom under his skin as testament. There's no reason Tim should have to sit around for that. He _hates_ hospitals and he's already had to put it aside to sit by Jay's bedside after he got himself shot. And now again because Jay can't even put an end to himself without fucking up somehow. _Nice work_. Tim will do what he always does and blame himself when he's quite right to be angry. Everything the world threw at Tim and he never let it rise above his head, not once, no matter how many tests and pills and tortures he shouldered his way through.

Shame, humiliation, embarrassment, remorse – they're on the tip of his tongue like a checklist but every box comes away blank. _I don't feel anything_. The real Jay never really left the college building, so it's just an empty shell running around the hospital, bleeding on Tim's carpet, throwing up in the bathroom, leaving his stains everywhere he goes.

“When was the last time you were truly happy? What were you doing, and why do you think it made you feel that way?”

Jay swallows. The last time he laughed without an edge of cruelty or bitterness involved Tum pushing him into the shower half-clothed, and the rest turns his face as red as it flushed under the slightly too hot water. A blissful afternoon augmented by the shriek from Brian later in the evening when he realised a second too late the lubricant had been left next to the toothpaste. Blood is invading his face and there's nothing he can do to fortify himself against it besides clap a hand over a widening smirk.

“You've gone red! I'm going to bet this has something to do with that young man of yours.”

He shoots her a shocked look before he has time to stop himself.

She waves the hand that hosts her wedding ring and rolls her eyes. "Oh, relax. I won't deny someone who's been through what you have whatever pleasure you can find in this awful world of ours. Besides, if I was twenty years younger I'd want to hit that, too.”

“ _Hit that”? Get down the kids_.

“I'm guessing Tim the one who looks like Bryan Ferry and not the one who looks like a football player?"

“I don't know who that is.”

“The one with the sideburns?”

“Yeah, that's... that's him. When was he here?” Can she hear his heart thudding? _He's just working. You know what he's like about taking days off._

"Every day since you were brought in. I think he said he was working all week, but he's free Saturday."

 _Working. See? I told you_. “How do you know his name?”

“You keep shouting that name in your sleep. 'Come on, Tim!' And since Henman hasn't played for years and you don't really look like a sports fan I'm just putting two and two together.”

Sleep has always left him powerless and vulnerable, and apparently there's no let-up here.

"They've both told us a lot - about your drinking, your behaviour in general, and everything you've been through recently. But we'll get to that later. Really you should've had some kind of counselling after you were shot, but -"

"We couldn't afford it." Tim's in his head shouting about how money works, soundtrack to a page with nothing but the word 'RESUME' stripped of context at the top. “I don't want them to come back. He should be doing other things.”

“I walked in on him kissing your hand, much as he tried to pretend otherwise. I don't know why he thought I was going to buy that he was brushing dust off you, but it was cute, regardless. He must care for you very much.”

 _I can see what you're trying to do and it's not going to work_. She's viewing his situation through her own rosy optical trickery. Tim loves him, and it's that simple. Same as Brian cooking dinner because that's what his happy family did to fix everything.

“But, in and of itself, how is life at home? Since you've been feeling so low has it put strain on your, um, relationship?”

 _What do you fucking think?_ Evidently she's made her mind up based on observation - Tim will have come in running his hands through his hair and stammering and excusing himself quickly for a smoke. She's astute, and it won't have passed her by. For some sadistic reason she needs Jay to spell it out, to see him writhe in the pain of understanding - a kid tormenting grubs on the ground on a hot day, her wire-rimmed spectacles a magnifying glass burning into him.

The last three times they've seen one another, they've fought. “He's tired of me. Of course he is.”

"Has he... said as much?"

"He doesn't need to." It's all there in Tim's sighs when he's run out of words, in the way he ruffles his hair and wrings his hands whenever they're speaking, the time limit on his temper these days.

 _He told me he loved me before I came here_. He's never put into words before, neither of them have. It was always there in glazed-over eyes and open arms. Lying spent on his shoulder and watching smoke rise to the ceiling, words just felt inadequate, uncomfortable. Now it's as though they're shouting to each other across a chasm.

_Why would he come right out and say that if we're not on our last legs?_

He jumps as she squeezes the knee that's closest to her. Right away she snatches it back, but she keeps the sympathetic tilt to her head. "Showing, not telling, right?"

Jay laughs mid-yawn. "You're getting it."

"Is he struggling with these outbursts?"

"It's not that. It's because I don't speak."

"Well, what's the simplest way you can think of putting how you feel?"

 _This is a ridiculous question_ . Aren't the answers right here in his dead eyes and his bleeding lips and the way he's turning to bones? _How loud do I have to shout_? Asking the same things, going through the motions - she's not exactly selling life and work to him here.

 _I've watched people die. I'm as good as a killer myself_ . A quick end was the only thing they could've done with Alex, by the end, even if he entertained fantasies of turning him in to the cops triumphantly, or of seeing the mask of anger peel back from his face with the years and the old Alex – _no. It's no use living in the past_. As if this woman with her clipboard and her hair in a neat bun could even begin to fathom the things he's seen, let alone get a better handle on it than he can. It's hilarious, really. She must think that if you slap a label on something, diagnose a disorder, then it's all safe and under control. But she still can't see what's behind her, what happens when she blinks. She leaves all of this at the door and goes home to her husband and kids, lights in the windows, never thinking on what might be looking in. It's pitiable. It's enviable. Against his shadows, literal and figurative, all her programmes and prescriptions would be as much use as a leash to a lion tamer.

"I feel like I'm looking at the sea," he starts. "I'm standing on the edge of a cliff looking for an island, but there's nothing, just the water. And the ground's crumbling under my feet the longer I stay, but there's nowhere else to go."

"That's a good way of putting it," she says. "You should write it down. Only it's not very simple, is it?"

Jay shrugs. The image of the sea and sky is clear enough in his head, so much that he can feel the dune grass whipping against his legs.

"But what you're basically saying is that you feel there's nowhere to go, and time is running out, so you might as well jump?"

Too weak to die. Too weak to get better. What else to do but stand at wait for time and tide to make your mind up for you?

"This idea that you're running out of time - where do you think that comes from?"

 _Because I'm nearly thirty and I've done nothing with my life and I don't even have a birth certificate anymore_?

"I don't really know," he says at length. All he knows is that it's more real than real. He's never been good at anything. Once upon a time there was a desire to take all his pain and put it in a frame, in some misguided sense that it was useful to someone. Why is she rubbing all this into his face by making him say it aloud? It's so _beyond obvious_ that his life has passed him by, and if she thinks making him reiterate that is going to make him feel better, she's more deluded than everyone else here.

She might as well tear the bandages off his wrists to poke the cuts and ask why they're not healing. “ _Oh, and don't you know that bleeding all over the floor like that makes my job harder?”_

"How long have you felt this way?"

Jay knew he sitting was on a ticking time bomb throughout the whole Operator debacle, but what he's feeling now is different. Having a direct enemy was easy, at least in a sense that it invited action rather than introspection. The idea of time falling away rather than running to meet him set in some time after he got home from hospital and realised Brian had put in five job applications in the time it took him to realise he needed an up-to-date resume.

"I think I always felt like that."

"Is it because of the years you lost? They told me you were on the run, someone following you."

"Yeah, maybe. I'm not twenty anymore, so... I guess it just really hit home when I started bleeding to death."

"I appreciate that. But you don't want to die, you know. You just want to stop hurting."

 _Don't tell me what I do and don't feel_. "I can't think of anything to stay alive for."

He waits for her to counter with a slew of useless suggestions, or to sigh about defeatism, but she doesn't. "Don't tell me it's selfish."

"I wasn't going to." _No, you're showing_. "But your friends -"

"Don't you ever think it's selfish to tell someone to stay alive just to keep you entertained?” _Shut up Jay, shut up_ , but it's not happening, the torrent keeps spilling out of him, the lock's come off. “Because _you'd_ feel sad about it? No matter if they're going to feel ten times as sad all the damn time?"

"Circumstances vary, Jay. But I believe there's always a way to turn it around, whereas with death, there's not a way to turn back from it."

“ _That's kind of the point!”_

She just looks at him and makes a few notes. The way she rests her eyes on him, calm and impartial, while recording it - maybe it's the next best thing to a camera.

Mary's back from flower arrangement duty and sits down beside him before he has a chance to run back to his room, joining the throng. This is the most interaction he's had with human beings since college and it's stifling. Sweat has cooled into a sticky film and he's trapped with preying eyes on him in every direction. The conversation he had two minutes ago is lost to him. At which point did he stop telling Mary-Maria-Marina what it was he thought she wanted to hear? _You fucking moron_ . Letting his guard down like that... _do you_ want _to stay here another week?_

But then, hasn't becoming too guarded always been part of the problem?

Mary takes his hand in hers, soft and faintly scented from the flowers. Childhood meadows reaching out for him. "Don't you want to know why I'm here, Jay?.

 _Not particularly._ But knowing her, she's going to tell him anyway.

"Because I burn myself." She says it in a breathless way that suggests she's awaiting applause, but the little congregation Jay's attracted only watches with their fish-like jaws hanging open.

"I never thought much about why until Andrea here made me." _Oh, so that's her name_. "She's very good! She made me see it was because I felt like I deserved the pain, because -"

"Group therapy's on Monday, people," says Andrea, reaching out to touch Jay's hand with a look of 'Sorry, didn't expect it'. _Hasn't she worked here long enough?_

"Because there are people out there less lucky than I am."

"Like me." _Great. I'm someone else's karma bank_.

"Well yes, but there are people less lucky than you, too."

"Mary, I'm not sure -" Andrea says.

"Just ask yourself, Jay, what it is you feel you've done to deserve it."

Jay's caught in a hail of arrows, words and eternal well meanings flying towards him from every which way. It's too much to process at once. "I don't feel like talking about it."

"Maybe you're still around because you've unfinished business, then - you're here for a higher purpose. Everything happens for a reason."

 _Don't. Say. That_ . _What next? There's nothing worse than a papercut_? "Blood clotting saved my life. That's all."

"Isn't this proof that there's still a chance? Your body's telling you it's not time to go yet!"

 _Oh, for Christ's sake_.

He and Tim talked about it once, at length - fate, destiny, whatever - and agreed on it. It's what weak-minded people tell themselves to avoid the truth of their bad luck, or to attach significance to their lives that isn't there and divert their attention from the null and void ahead of them. Jay can't chalk up what happened to him as anything more than poor decision-making. Sure, it'd be _nice_ to think of himself as a reluctant hero who took on a monster and found true love's kiss at the end, but that doesn't factor in his drinking problem and the fact that he took on some pretty monstrous tendencies of his own. Mary sits there with her vacant eyes and her simple smile as default, smelling of flowers, and no idea how lucky she is to be able to stick horns and cloven hoofs on everything she knows as evil.

"You need to find something to replace the drink, the drugs," she bleats. "If your, uh, friend isn't telling you to stop, you -"

"Nobody else is in charge of what goes up his nose," says Steve, who's materialised by the edge of the couch at the mention of drugs and, to look at him, could very well be protecting his outside trade interests. "Other places, though..."

Jay blinks a couple of times, but the red in his eyes doesn't shift. He's been dealing with side-eyeing and sniping since he got here, and his low opinion of himself aside, the fact that this rhino actually thinks it's okay to bully and humiliate a smaller man who's been brought in for _attempted suicide_ stirs something in him he hasn't felt since he saw Alex lift and lower a rock four times. How many people worth more than him have been subjected to this?

His mouth, since getting a taste of freedom in his outburst to Andrea, doesn't want to go back in the cage. "I think someone's been dreaming of me."

And then his hands start shaking the way they always do when he drops a camera or takes a wrong direction and prays no-one walking past him notices. He's past the point of caring if Steve whacks him or not. Being beaten to death might be as good a way to go as any. He seems the type to think casting aspersions on his preferences would be reasonable grounds for murder and he'd most likely do a better job of it than Jay did. But Steve just sinks away down the corridor, a puffer fish deflating, and the circle of inmates erupts into laughter.

Jay hangs his head. Funny how being laughed at seems so much worse than being beaten to a pulp. The mocking ricochets from wall too wall all the way along the corridor, just like it did in high school when he fell over his shoelaces or walked into someone's open locker door. _Please God please just go and find something else to do stop looking at me just move on just go I'll have to walk past them to get to my room and I just want to lie down_. His chest tightens and it's like he's in his own field of gravity, his limbs all pulling together to draw him inward into a ball.

Except when he looks up, no eyes are there to meet him. Everyone is following the line Steve and his sagging shoulders draw down the corridor. They're too busy fixing on Steve and his punctured pride, laughing at him... not at Jay. _Not likely_. But he scans the assembly again – Carl the poet, Mark who likes to burn things, - and not one of them is aiming their all-seeing eyes at him, save for anorexic Ewan, who's throwing him a thumbs up. Even Mary is smiling despite her undoubtedly priggish thoughts on the matter, and now Jay's joining in, impulse battling aches from underused muscles that may very well crack his face.

He's just made a group of people laugh. With him, not at him. _I_ _did it_. That's one thing crossed off the bucket list, even though rafting down Niagara Falls and swimming with dolphins looked like more realistic goals when he was in college and walking into everyone without a word to say.

Andrea looks at her watch, shuffles the papers she's holding, and takes his hand. He doesn't shrink from the touch this time. 'We'll try again tomorrow, when you're a little livelier." _Fat chance of that_. And yet, that's still a smile on his face, even if he has no say in the matter. "Try to rest up. And I want you to think in the meantime, Jay. Do you really feel like this is where you're meant to be? Because we're not letting you go just yet, either way.”

There's something in the way she poses it that makes him say _No, it's not_. He can't come up with a better answer for where he should be, but... that anyone's life should come to this.

There's still tittering on the periphery of his hearing, and as the crowd disperses, a few of them throw smiles and awed wide eyes at him. He can see his door from here, but the compulsion to move seems to have left with his assailant – sitting here is the closest he's ever been to a standing ovation. One sunbeam is fighting valiantly against the cloud cover and glittering in the spaces made by trees blowing in the wind, as it would when he watched it from the window of his bedroom as a kid making plans for what he'd do in the wide open space of adulthood. One thing off the bucket list, and here, of all places.

_Maybe I need a bigger bucket after all._

 


	13. Solo

_I've been haunted all my life, on the brink of something close_  
 _People know that I ain't right, know I'm grappling with a ghost_  
 _Oh, I'm armed and dangerous, and I'm deafened by the fray_  
 _Waiting for the day I'm able and I set it on its way_  
 _Oh, take me on, let me go all day  
_ _Just beat it 'til I know the riot's gone away_  
\- Santigold

Tim stands in the doorway of Brian's childhood home, framed in shadow the colour of an old bruise. All around him is the golden haze of sunset as the last swallows of summer swathe across a reddening sky, and a breeze lifts the long grass that ripples like an ocean rolling away in front of him. Picture postcard family friezes come together and fall apart at the bottom of the garden. Is it possible to feel nostalgia for something you never had? The family are all crashing through it like explorers, Brian towering above the rest with the little girl sat on his shoulders and a smile wide enough to see from all the way up here.

He's staying put until the barbeque's ready. The greasy, marinade-drenched barbeque that he assumed was going to be a more formal affair and turned up to in his white shirt – typical. But, hey, at least it's stopped raining. If anyone asks where he's been, he'll say he got lost on the way to the bathroom, which in this house isn't as unlikely as it sounds. All the rooms seem to connect to one another, between them hanging strings of beads in all colours and throws patterned like the wallpaper of Indian restaurants he's wandered past. Walking through them, silk and glass slipping through his hands, lends the same mystery to each room as a magician's house.

The floorboards are uneven and creak back at you in a conversational kind of way. There's not a surface bare of ornaments and oddities, cuckoo clocks, coloured vases, little porcelain kittens – and a fine coating of dust, it must be said. But even the flecks of toothpaste on the bathroom mirror and the coppery water marks blotched on the porcelain hold their own unkempt interest that the family is too busy having fun to clean away.

The pristine hospital as stone-faced as the staff, the barren motel rooms designed to be as quick to clean as possible, and the stoic meticulousness of his mother's house; even putting together all the places he's lived, Tim couldn't come up with even half as many things to look at. The family could probably open a museum if the house wasn't hidden away in the hills. The fields out front rise and fall into the distance, with only the glint of the sun's embers on a lake flat as glass to interrupt the grass sea. Brian and Paul were lucky to make it to adulthood if the stories are anything to go by, like the time they tried to sail the lake in a cardboard box because the skull and crossbones on the packaging made them think it was a good idea. Or when they pretended to be velociraptors in the tall grass and created enough of a ruckus to bring about a close encounter with a rattlesnake. Brian's always been an actor. All the way out here you'd have to use your imagination to get away. But you wouldn't want to stray too far from it, either.

The trees at the bottom of the garden are bent over with age and carrying boughs twisted into gnarled arthritic fingers. A rope swing dangles idly from one knotting limb, low enough to brush the ground. Brian claims it's been here as long as they have and never broken, not since he was the little girl's age. _Grace_. She's taken the rope and, without a care in the world for her party dress, lifts off the ground. Her name fits the to and fro motion across the circle of trees, pink clothes billowing behind her like a drift of blossom. She must have been born... _when?_ Around the time Jay started filming himself? She only knew she had an Uncle Brian about three months ago – the same day he spent wandering up and down the house shouting “I've got a fucking _niece!_ ” at irregular intervals and lifting his arms over his head like he'd won a football game. Tim half-expected him to whip his shirt off, too. But as Tim forced the car over the rough track leading up to the house she came running towards them like a marshmallow whirwind and attached herself to his leg, while everyone above waist height passed introductions back and forth.

'Uncle Brian' fell nicely off the tongue as they spoke, in spite of how big the house loomed around him and how tightly together everyone else was stood. Brian's mother ran right up to her prodigal son, threw her arms around him and kissed his reddened cheek - no questions, no suspicions, just tears in the corners of her eyes crushed into her crow's feet when she smiles. She kissed Tim, too, talked nineteen to the dozen at him while ushering them all into the living room to take seats on the sort of cushiony couches that threaten to swallow you; complimening his hair, insisting her call her Carole, checking the drive was okay, yes, it's perfectly fine for him to smoke in the house, and what would he like to drink? Did he need another pillow?

Now they've adjourned to the grill at the bottom of the garden. Tim's done his bit carrying salad bowls and sausages down to the plastic table and he needs a minute, just a minute, to get his breath back after so much talking. _What's the etiquette for smoking outdoors?_ None of his homes over the years had much in the way of a garden to give him answer. Lawn space was out of their price range, his mother used to say, too busy flitting between two jobs to help anything grow. Acres of forest crawled up to the hospital, but the woods housed too many whispers.

Jay grew up in a town house opening onto a busy street; in his own words, walking out into a swarm of bodies every day turned going down the steps into the best white-knuckle rollercoaster he could've asked for. The old-fashioned streetlights and spruce trees in front of every home that Jay describes leant Tim pictures of a Victorian building - probably over-romantic, stopping just short of envisioning a horse and cart on the doorstep. They both had trees outside their windows growing up, branches scraping at the windows like pleading fingers with nowhere to go in the rain. Jay said he used to hide under the blankets with his cat. Tim had nothing but to sit on the sill and wave back.

He shakes his head and drops his cigarette, grinding it underfoot. The sun, halfway through turning in for the night, has positioned itself perfectly for glaring right into his eyes. He kicks the stub under a plant pot and checks for disapproving watchful eyes. No need to worry. They're all looking at Brian as he speaks, shades on and arms out talking with his hands like he's about to hug everyone. _Say what you like about his acting, he knows how to hold an audience captive_. Except for Paul, who materialises at Tim's side with only a broken twig to herald his arrival.

"Got a light?"

He asks it in a furtive way that suggests Jeanette and the others aren't meant to know. Tim smiles conspiratorially and hands over the lighter. They amble together around the side of the house, shaded from the sun and from view.

"So, what is it you do? I, I was listening before, I just got kind of distracted, you know."

Tim knows – Paul is stumbling from one foot to the other in a desperate bid to stay upright. A young father off the leash for the first time in a while. "Sell dirty magazines to old men and argue with teenagers trying to buy cigarettes about how old they are. It's thrilling."

Paul grins. It's not the same easy smile Brian wears, warm and reassuring, even if they both have the same ridiculous and unfair jawline. Paul's face is too thin for that. With pinched cheekbones and a few crooked teeth, there's something malicious in his mirth Tim can't quite place. Nothing more than paranoia, most likely.

"Sorry, man. You're probably so glad to be out of there being asked about it is the last thing you want."

Tim shrugs. "I imagine accounting's the same."

"It was _fine_ until Brian wouldn't stop ribbing me for it. He can't believe it. I think that whole time he was, you know, he still thought we were going to be rock stars when he got back."

Paul's not quite a rock star type to look at him, but if Brian decides not to take no for an answer...

"I think he's transferred that onto me. I have a house full of instruments, so I guess I set myself up for it. I think we were a ska band last I heard."

"Well, if you're the one who has to listen to him singing in the shower, I'm all for it. I used to have a bass, but clearing out for the kid, you know how it is... He said you were a musician, too - what do you play?"

"Nothing, like, proficiently. But I can do a bit of guitar and a bit of keyboard. And ukulele."

"You should've brought the uke with you for when we get the bonfire going."

"Shame. We didn't think of that." _Fire. Great_. Brian neglected to mention that. Paul's gaze has fallen to the ground, and he's opening his mouth when a scuffle to Tim's left turns their heads.

"That's where you're wrong," says Brian, sticking his head around the side of the wall. "I put it in the trunk before we left. Grub's up."

They file back to the pit at the bottom of the garden, with an air of something left unsaid. The sun sits as a dim line on the horion the same colour as the burning coals. Brian's dad whose name he didn't quite catch is manning the barbeque and it's striking how similar they look; the eyes, the curls, the shoulders. Perhaps one day Brian's younger face can wear the same contended crooked smile. There's still time. Brian hasn't said, but he doesn't need to, that he has doubts. He sports the faintest of frowns to when he sees his brother and his young family and Tim caught him in the bathroom mirror before they set off, looking himself over and pressing the thin lines on his forehead, like smoothing the skin would wipe away the memories.

How have his parents changed since he last saw them? They're thronging around the food and Brian fits in like a puzzle piece, passing around a bowl of pasta salad and laughing at something his father murmurs, pulled in for a quick kiss on the forehead by his mother. Tim holds back from the fold-out table and lets everyone else load their plates first. His stomach could grind stones with tension, all these new eyes on him, but he's going to eat his feelings anyway. He's never seen anything like this. Bread roll pyramids sit amongst bowls of salads bursting with colour and the smell of a hundred spices he can't name. A party at the hospital consisted of some dry cupcakes and orange juice, if they were lucky. If hed grown up like this he'd probably enjoy cooking as much as Brian. His hand hovers over charred burgers and bright red, shining tomatoes, never settling, because what if he takes the last of someone's favourite? But they're all sitting down on white lawn chairs and waiting for him. What if he seems rude, or Carole misreads his hesitance as some failing with the food? In the end he settles on a bit of everything, and lets Brian do the talking.

“Radiohead have the Greenwood brothers. I'm just saying, it _can_ be cool to be in a band with your sibling.”

“Yeah, but this is you we're talking about,” says Tim as he takes a seat, and everyone laughs, thank God.

Paul drains his beer and crumples the can underfoot. "Just because something isn't what you wanted, what you envisioned. That doesn't mean it can't still be good."

"I agree," says Jeanette, a thin, dark-haired woman pushing potato salad around on her plate and reaching for her glass more often than the others. "I didn't start painting until I was pregnant and bored with being in the house all day, and now I wouldn't do anything else."

Brian snorts. “You didn't come all this way to tell me about pencil-pushing, dude. You still playing?”

Paul shakes his head. “I gave up trying years back.”

"You were better than Sid. Vicious, I mean," Brian adds after taking in a unanimous 'who?' shrug.

 _I know who you meant._ "Yeah, but that's like saying I'm a better singer than you."

Brian takes this as a cue to get up and break into his rousing rendition of _We Are the Champions_. He's got the Freddie theatricality down pat, waving his arms and swooping down to pick up a giggling Grace, but the part where he has to actually make his voice pleasant to listen to is some way off.

“ _I've paid my dues, time after time,”_ he caterwauls _. How much beer did he have while we were talking?_

Everyone falls about laughing, except Brian's mother. She rests her eyes on him with her hands folded, like a woman at prayer. _She loves him_. And it's easy to tell that she'd love him even if she saw all the tapes back to back and he turned up on the her doorstep in the hood at midnight. What did little Brian do to get this lucky? No walls, no tapping trees, no problems.

“ _I've done my sentence, but committed no crime.”_

Tim cried right through his first night in the hospital, so much that head ached, and the pain made him cry some more.

“ _And bad mistakes, I've made a few"_

Brian lost seven years of life to a bad crowd; that's the official story that Tim, the only college friend he could get in touch with, is corroborating. All assembled join in with the chorus, except Tim. And Grace. She's been looming in his general vicinity with that way children, much like animals, have of gravitating toward the one who doesn't like them. Though it could be that he's had rather less to drink than everyone else. The bottle of wine he asked Ren to pick out for him sits unopened amongst everyone else's beer bottles. Jeanette in the chair next to him is looking a little worse for wear, her face flushed and plastered with a vacuous grin. The little girl is having none of it and demanding Uncle Brian and now Uncle Tim go and play hide and seek. The idea of hiding somewhere until it's time to go home is tempting... but the food is here. Jeanette leans in and he can smell something stronger than beer on her breath. "My four-year-old thinks you look like a Disney prince, but she's too embarrassed to tell you."

Grace turns away, reddening like her mother, and buries herself in her father's shirt. It's the highest compliment he's been paid in quite some time. Inwardly he's sinking, though he keeps the smile on his face. She's going to get everything Brian had as a child. Everything he didn't. If he'd woken up to this every day and not another round of tests and pills...

Jeanette says she'd paint his portrait, with a little too much of a twinkle in her eye. Paul coughs in a 'la la la, I'm not listening' kind of way. And she wants to paint the house, too. He's never seen her work. What does this strange little scene look like through an artist's lens? The family are all Monets rushing into each other, and Tim's a Francis Bacon. Though there's something a little surreal about Brian, now. _Have they noticed?_ Probably not. He's Picasso - acceptably weird. They'll still think of him as he was when he was younger, when he had everything Tim didn't.

 _Maybe it's time you stopped thinking of yourself as the child_.

Tim blinks a couple of times. _Don't mince your words or anything, subconscious_. He's older than Paul and Jeanette and look at his life by contrast. Not that playing happy families has ever been of any interest to him, even before life arranged itself in such a way that another man would be the only person he'd trust enough to love. But what kind of life to lead is one where it's a miracle he manages to keep so much as his crappy convenience store job? It's time to settle on something.

There's no getting away from it. Deflection is as ineffectual as trying to keep the low-lying sun out of his eyes. _I miss Jay_.

If he was here now they'd find a corner and be misfits together. Maybe, after a couple of beers, they'd hold hands under the table while no-one was looking. Or maybe if Jay was _here_ they'd have no reason to care. Brian's family are all painfully nice, so Tim can't even have the joy of finding with fault with them.

Not that he'd want to get too daring with others around. Tim learned early on not to expect great things from Jay's risk assessment, and told him as much in a half-assed nod to protest before that one time they fucked on the fire escape outside their hotel room. Just the memory makes his jaw drop. A week in which they could barely afford to eat coincided, in typical good fortune, with running out of lubricant. Two days of desperation proved their lacking moral fortitude and ended with Jay dropping the tube he was attempting to slip into his pocket, alerting an assistant, and the two of them bolting from the pharmacy back to their hotel. With adrenaline terrifying and glorious coursing through them Jay had tripped on the stairs, pulled Tim down with him, and one thing led to another until hands scoured under shirts and worked at buckles. Under flickering streetlights and in full view of anyone, where for ten breathless minutes, the rest of the world didn't exist anymore. It wasn't quite the making love under the stars by light of the full moon described purple prose paperbacks, but it was _theirs_.

 _Do you even have any memories of him that aren't based entirely around sex?_ His mental photo album comes up with very little. Through the eyes of someone who met the love of their life through a mutual friend at a party or got to know them swapping secret smiles in class or had a first kiss that felt like anything other than an oasis in a desert, it's going to look like he's putting his well-being on the line for the residue of some kind of paranormal holiday fling. But they _did_ talk. Tim's very sorry he doesn't have a mental dictaphone to recite every exchange they ever made. Isn't most conversation supposed to be incidental and forgettable? _Aren't we social animals and talking shouldn't be so novel I can recall everything we've said to each other?_ The family sat around him wouldn't think so. Words swap between them quick as if they're playing white elephant, thrown off the tongue and into the void to be forgotten in light of the next sentence. It's more than he can keep up with and the one ally he has against this verbal crossfire – his own mind – is following its own field of gravitation toward the one thing he's trying to divert it from.

Anyne looking in might be keen to tell him to slip out of the check mate of co-dependence he's created, but it's never been so simple for them as just walking away from one another, and it never will be. No-one tells him what to do with all the love that's still inside him, tangled and waiting to unravel. It certainly can't be passed onto another person, because it's synced with Jay, a code of thoughts and jokes and secrets they shared only with each other. You don't transplant threads of a tapestry and expect the sequence to still make sense.

At which point did he cross the imperceptible line between planning a future and all these 'remember when's' and 'that one time's'? Everything they've endured, and that's all? Waving goodbye from behind the curtain of his hospital bed and giving up on the closest he's ever come to contentment. Where just loving him is enough to feel like he's done something with the day.

Sometimes Tim walks into a room and catches his reflection in a mirror or window before he has chance to hit the lights. That's when he sees a white face with shadows for eyes and a dark pucker where a mouth should be - only for the blink of an eye, the fraction of a second it takes for healing light to flood the room. But it's there, an indelible impression ghosting over his face to remind him he's only forsaken one mask for another.

His plastic face is lost forever. The act of symbolically smashing it could be some kind of closure, severance, absolution, fuck knows, if only he could find it. Even now, every so often, he finds himself checking the small spaces in the house, just in case. Even Jay doesn't know about it. But when he sees the outline even as a trick of the light it's enough to rent the shroud of normality he shows to the world.

 _I've been stalked by a thing that shouldn't be for years, something in my brain made me decide running around in a cheap Halloween mask was a logical thing to do, and it's my feelings for another man that are weird to me right now_?

Before he can expound on that, Brian sits himself down on the rockery beside him with classic timing and a burger dripping with cheese, stuffed into the biggest, smuggest smile Tim has ever seen. "Got a favour to ask," he mumbles through a mouthful of bread.

"Yeah?"

"I'm thinking of staying out here a few days. They're not flying back until next weekend and I just want more time to catch up with Paul, get to know the girls a little better."

"I think I'm free to pick you up next Wednesday."

"Thanks, Tim." He leans back and closes his eyes. "I just can't tell you how good it feels to be back. It's like, whatever else happens, I can always come out here and as long as I stay, everything's okay again. Know what I mean?"

Tim pans the rolling fields around them and yeah, he kind of sees it. The hills are older and larger than any of them, and the hills don't care about that socially inept thing you said one time. Serene and quiet, but with enough human clamour and enough beauty around you to feel like company. There's open spaces and nowhere for nightmares to hide.

Then there's his own mother opening the door to his ten-year-old self, sending him to bed and brewing coffee for the specialist, and Tim reaches for his cigarettes.

Something's evidently off in his expression. Brian's face falls and he knocks himself on the head. "Jesus Christ, Tim, I'm sorry. I didn't think. Are you okay?"

"It's fine."

"You're not feeling too... left out, are you? Maybe I shouldn't have even asked you here."

"Yes, you should. I'm glad I came. I was thinking about something else."

Brian leans in closer, until their temples are almost touching, and whispers; "You're doing great, by the way. Talking to everyone and... stuff."

By 'stuff', Tim can guess Brian means something along the lines of 'not freaking out because your lunatic boyfriend's in hospital and spewing years of trauma and terror onto everyone and embarrassing me', which is still a compliment, of a sort.

Brian clears his throat. "Something else I meant to tell you. I got a call a minute ago."

"Oh, yeah? From one of the places you were interviewed?"

"Guess again." He's practically rubbing his hands with glee, whatever it is.

"Just tell me."

"Well, who else has my number?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"You were there."

" _Oh_. Ren."

"I'm taking her out next Saturday."

"I should've known. I'd forgotten how insufferable you are when you score."

Brian frowns. "Hey! I don't boast or anything. I'd never talk about her, you know, like that."

"No, you're just even happier than usual." Tim doesn't need any more hints to reach for his wallet.

"I explained and she said she'd pay."

Brian's honour isn't worth everything else he could buy with the money. "Well, great. Don't do anything to get me fired."

"I'll take that as a good luck." Brian puts his empty plate down on the table and whips out his phone. "I don't know what to set my relationship status to, now."

"They've made you part of this decade now, then?" He brings up the Facebook app, types in Brian's name, and they're officially friends again in seconds.

"Twenty notifications? Where the hell is that coming from? They've actually crashed my phone."

"It'll be people tagging you in old college photos."

"You're right. Why are they bothering with these old pictures?"

"I don't know. It's like all the people I've seen filming their night out instead of enjoying it. There's this... weird need to document everything."

They exchange a look, and say no more about it. Brian clears his throat. "Everyone was still using MySpace the last time I set up anything like this."

 _Fuck me_. Tim actually lets out a breath at that. "And now I feel old. But I've been struggling a little myself. With the, you know, relationship status thing."

"You're really thinking of finishing it?"

"Thinking of it, yeah. I... care for him, but you're right. This can't go on the way it is. I'll pay his medical bills and see what happens.”

“You sure you'll be able to do that? I don't mind helping out, once I have a job. It's got to happen eventually, right?”

“No. It's not on you to fix this. If we're struggling to pay, well, how many instruments do I have lying around that I never play anymore?”

“Sell his goddamn car!” Brian lowers his voice. “Tim, you can't give up your music. If you haven't been playing it's because of everything that's been going on, not -”

“Can we not do this right now? I know I brought it up but...” _No, don't do this here, take a step back, go and smoke if you need to, brethe in, breathe out_.

“Sure. But we can talk about, you know, finishing it, if you need to.”

“I don't know. Do I maybe just like the idea of a decision I can't go back on? I don't entirely trust my decision-making capacity right now."

"You chose me to be your best friend, though, didn't you? And don't say 'Case in point' or something like that."

"It wasn't really a choice. You just kind of happen to people. I'm glad, though."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"What will that do?" A notification ping shatters the rustic quiet; it's a request from Brian to set their status to married.

"Is that what you call a proposal?"

"We kill two birds with one stone that way. Anyway, all my family is here, you're wearing white..."

"You could at least buy me a ring first."

Brian plucks one of the doughnuts from a bowl on the table and throws it to him, right in the forehead. _Goal_.

"Never really understood dating," Tim says, standing up to join him at the table. Brian motions in the direction of the lake and they set off ambling through the long grass, over a tumbledown stone wall and into the wild. He tried dating a couple of times, back in college, even for a few weeks while he was working. Before Jay and his camera found him. Saying yes was less awkward than saying no, and the spark usually guttered out when his partner was understandably annoyed that he hadn't picked up the phone in three weeks.

Brian shrugs. "You're not really meant to think enough about it to _understand_. I don't know. It's fun."

"Just this whole thing of... you approach a person you don't know based on what they look like, and you start making all these plans before you even know them."

"I'm not going to propose to her or anything. Like I said, it's just for fun."

"Yeah, but that whole thing of worrying you're texting back too soon or leaving it too long, or pretending you're into this band or that show when you're not - why not just do what makes sense?" Not that Tim's method of leaping into bed with the only person he understood is working out so well for him. Maybe he's not one to criticise.He and Jay were never even friends. What does that make them now? _Do I even want him to be awake or not?_

"I can see why it might be awkward for you," says Brian. "Like, when in a relationship do you start telling someone about all the problems you've had?"

"That's... more perceptive than I ever would've given you credit for."

"If you do it too early they might be put off, but leave it too late and they might think you were deceiving them, I guess. I mean, _I_ don't think I'd have a problem being in a relationship with someone who had your -"

"You married me, didn't you?"

"Seriously though, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with you, it's more like society's problem if anyone was, you know, put off." He's wringing his hands and pulling at that tufts of grain brushing around his waist. "I meant - oh, Christ, I'm not doing well tonight."

"Brian, I get what you meant. It's fine. You're completely right, actually. It's kind of nice that someone gets it without having to be told."

"Let's go in. It'll get cold soon."

Tim takes a last look over the fields before they head in. _I feel like I'm looking at the sea_ ... so does Tim, now more than ever as the sun sinks and the undulating hills turn to dusky blue. It's hard to think of a boat or a lighthouse making its way out here. _And with that, it's time to go_.

They're all loitering on the veranda, the last embers of the bonfire dying down in the corner of his eye. Jeanette is drifting off to sleep against one of the supports with her daughter tugging her hand, and the others are lined up across the doorway. Warm amber light spills from the inside of the house, falling just short of Tim's feet.

"Thank you for inviting me."

“Thank _you_ for coming,” says Carole, kissing his cheek again. “Come back, won't you?”

“I'll be here Wednesday to pick Brian up, so.”

“Good, good. I'm so glad to know he has a friend like you. We're so lucky,” she says, the last word lingering enough for her to repeat it under her breath. She gazes at Brian, in the hallway whispering something to Jeanette, like she can't believe he's real. Then Tim's saying that he really, really has to go because he really, really can't stand to be in the presence of that look a moment longer.

“Alright. Just do something for yourself some time, okay, sweetie? You work too hard!”

A colder voice echoes in his head; _please, Timmy, just_ try _this time, for me, won't you_ ? And he really, really, _really_ has to be going.

He's stepping off the veranda, stumbling in the dark, when Paul catches his arm. Tim reaches reflexively into his cigarette pocket, but a hand holds him back.

“I'm not buying all this Prodigal Son bullshit.”

“I... don't know what you mean.”

“I've just sat for five hours pretending like nothing's wrong so I won't upset my mom, but I know something's going on. I want to know the real reason I haven't seen my brother since I was in High School. I want to know why he hasn't made eye contact with anyone all evening.” He stops and sways slightly. “I'm not accusing you of anything. Or should I be?”

Tim looks at him with one eyebrow raised. Maybe he should try telling the truth. It's not like Paul could possibly believe it, not with all the evidence erased, and he could never conjecture anything more bizarre than the truth, either. There was something decisive about clicking on yes, he was sure he wanted to permanently delete the MarbleHornets Youtube channel. It's replaying on a loop in HD in his memory though, and Brian's, and Paul should back off and ow and learn to be grateful for everything he doesn't want to know.

"What exactly is it that you think he could've done that's worse than what he said?"

"I don't know, but I'm not buying that he spent a whole seven years so off his head he couldn't even leave a voicemail."

"From what he told me he was pretty out of it most of the time. Maybe he was ashamed, so he kept it from you guys -"

" _He wouldn't keep it from me!_ " Paul throws his bottle to the ground and scuffs his foot against the wooden slats underfoot. “Fuck it, I've had too much to drink. I want to talk to you again. Not now. It's late and I've got to get in. Drive safe.”

He spits the last word like bitter coffee dregs. Tim sidles down the steps and back into darkness.

The drive home in the dark is a quiet one, choosing all the back roads that meander the most in the route back to his empty house. He's got CDs with him but none of them seem to fit. It's still good to have something of himself to carry back inside, though. His guitar case is silhouetted against the window in the light of the moon. The other instruments are arranged around it. There's no reason not to.

He opens the bathroom door and the smell of blood is still there, clinging as it would to an old battlefield. Only the skylight guides his path, and there it is again in the mirror; a white face and shadows for features. He doesn't move. He stares into his own dark sockets, one hand on the wall by the mirror and the other still clutching a stack of CDs he chose himself.

The past can be a rising hot air balloon if you don't learn when to let go of the rope. But it's just as dangerous to draw so many lines in the sand you neglect to notice the tide coming in, turning corners until you forget where you came from. Eventually, you have to look it in the face and fight. But what if your scope's off and you're looking in the wrong places?

What if it's not Jay he has to leave behind, but something of himself?

Tim pushes off from the wall and strides to the music room. He pulls the guitar up from behind the sofa and strums the strings to check the tuning. The amp is waiting around the corner, but the neighbours have had enough noise over the last couple of weeks. The strings ring flat and hollow but as he plays, turning the pegs as needed, he can hear in his head how it should be. There's enough moon to see by and the wire digging into his fingers is all he can feel - you hit a string, a note comes out, simple as. He doesn't need anyone else to play around him. The calluses he cultivated playing regularly in college have long since worn away and it's not long before his fingers start to sting, but they can toughen again before long. It's just a matter of adjusting.

 


	14. Cadenza

_So I'm reeling the liars in, reeling the liars in  
_ _Here is my hand, now drive the nail in  
_ _I am reeling the liars in  
_ _Here is my tongue, now cut out my sin  
_ _We are reeling the liars in  
_ _There's only one thing, one place to begin  
_ _By reeling this liar in_  
\- Swans

"So I managed to do all the heavy lifting in half the time any of the guys manage it, and would you believe it, my vagina didn't even get in the way."

Until this revelation, Brian had believed that thing where a conversation takes a turn to the outrageous and the listener chokes on their drink only happened in movies. Apparently not. He lifts a napkin to his mouth to stifle the fountain threatening to spray forth and thanks all the deities he can think of he elected to wear a dark red shirt of similar hue to the wine.

He's coughing and covering his face, reddening in turn, with a hand. "Well, that could've gone better. But, well done, I guess."

 _Is that the best you can do?_ He coughs up the bitter dregs of wine from his throat and could kick himself for stammering. When was the last time he went on a date, anyway? Taking sweet little Rowan from the Theatre class who barely came up to his shoulder to see _Pan's Labyrinth_ , wasn't it? Grinning as he picked up the tickets and ushered her into a seat with her Hello Kitty purse and her polka dot hair bow, checking both the 'woo with cute kids' fantasy' box and the 'appear more cultured than actually am with foreign movie' box. And then... _that_. The evening ended with Rowan running home in tears and Brian calling Tim up to take her seat at the restaurant they'd booked, and he's never heard a Spanish phrase without wincing since.

His companion tonight seems the type to complain about historical inaccuracies and analyse the details in the cinematography, however. Across the table with the flickering candlelight in her eyes, Ren grins with a knowing sidelong glance, positively devilish – as though, maybe, just maybe, she timed her finish with precision he as an actor would kill for. "No, I'd say that went even better than I could've planned."

They're sat in a little Italian place of her choosing, only a candle stuck by wax drips into an empty wine bottle replete with peeling label between them. Another, fresher bottle sits next to it, more than half empty and the appetisers have only just arrived. Even while safe in the knowledge that he was entering assuredly as half of the best-looking couple in the room Brian was twitching for the tongue-loosening tingle two glasses give, but the evening is unravelling of its own accord. Ren's done most of the talking. To old Brian this might as well have been watching a movie, but considering how close he came to blurting out the story about that one time he confused toothpaste and lubricant, it might not be such a bad thing. Here and now all the interjections he comes up with – what he watched on TV all week, Jay walking into a lamppost a while back - seem so small next to the twists and turns her mind takes. She is enthralling, describing a day at work in a way that made him spit a drink where he's lucky to get a grunt out of Tim regarding the same job.

She lifts her wine and the flame shines on the dark of the glass and on her nails, painted black to match her jacket. The velvet is draped over the back of her chair now, revealing shapely neck and collarbones over the low-skimming neckline of her red dress. They laughed about turning up in the same colour scheme - was it moving too fast? It's drawing scarlet back into his cheeks, the effort she's gone to, painting her nails and brushing bright gold on her eyelids. Or is it kind of arrogant to assume it's just for him?

In the week since they planned to go out he's had ample time to try and retry different shirts and go back and forth on where to take her and... _talking_. Should he ask about her job, or would he look stupid considering he lives with a guy who does the exact same thing day in, day out? Should he ask about college or would she be too glad to get out of there to elaborate? Movies? Music? When was the last time he bought an album? Will she laugh at him talking about eight-year-old charts? Maybe they could do nostalgia, but she seems like a progressive kind of person... All accompanied by relentless 'don't get me fired' and 'she reads for fun' from Tim; the only thing differentiating a date from a job interview.

Sitting across a candlelit table from a beautiful and increasingly brilliant woman shouldn't be novel, shouldn't give him the chest-clenching feeling of walking into an exam hall, only... what's she getting from this other than a soapbox she could have on the internet for free? What can he _say_? How can he find common ground and make jokes and relate stories with someone he knows nothing about? Where they come from, where they're going?

The answer arrives in twice the time it should, would have long ago; _ask her_.

"So, I can't place your accent," he says, his voice echoing too loudly over the quiet violin drifting through the speakers. "Where did you move here from?"

Ren shrugs. "Nowhere. Always been here. But my parents are from Michigan originally."

"You... like it here?"

"Enough. I mostly stayed because people said good things about the college - before half of it flooded, anyway. I'm guessing that was before your time?"

Brian doesn't like where this is going, but he nods, a mouthful of garlic bread masking his reluctance and struggling through the knot forming in his stomach.

The crunch of the crust and the butter on his tongue takes him back to the trip home and stuffing himself with his mom's cooking – 'garlic in everything' was almost the family motto when it came to food, everything up to and not quite including cereals. Tasting home gives him the same eye-watering pang as seeing it. While saying _Grace_ to himself makes his heart leap, watching her play in the same way they did when they were kids touched nerves he'd never known existed and had him praying she'll never know what it's like to look at the people who love you and see only secrets. Perhaps it would've been easier to stay away and never have those golden memories of fields and sunsets tainted with paranoid thoughts of monsters at every turn; trying to sneak upstairs on the creaking floorboards like he did as a child, only to find himself back in a rotting college building. One place it seems he can't get away from, apparently.

"Everyone had a story about it. It was a hot week and all that water just seemed to come from nowhere. Some of the students swore there were ghosts in the film department still recording things, the authorities were convinced it was the same guys who burned out the mental hospital a few years before that. All I know for sure is that afterwards it became the thing to go and do your drugs in some of the abandoned buildings." She pauses to blow on her soup. "Apparently someone heard gunfire there a little while back - were you guys around for that?"

Brian struggles to swallow the rawness tightening his throat. "I don't think so. I wasn't, uh... talking to people a whole lot for a while there. Just moving in. You know. I don't really know what else to say about it."

"Sorry. Not a whole lot else happens around here, so it's all people talk about when something like this comes up. So, how did you guys end up here? Like, what made you all come to this backwater out of choice?"

"Well, Tim grew up here, and he came back after college I guess. We all stayed in touch... over the internet. And we kind of gravitated together. It was hard to find work where Jay and I were before, so we ended up sharing the house."

It's close enough to the truth. He leaps almost out of his skin when a waiter arrives the take away his plate, and looks to the ground in silent prayer Ren didn't notice. She's only looking at him to offer a smile of apology and check her phone. They're the best props from uncomfortable social situations, as he found out with his own brother last week. Seeing Paul that way is... strange. Strangely reassuring, though. If the years lost to fugue have put his brother in a suit and given him a wife who spent the entire evening sneaking drinks and flirting with Tim, maybe they both got dealt a shitty hand by life, in their own way. Brian's been set on a path with no precedent, cutting his way through creepers far stronger than him, so his route is bound to take a little longer to reveal itself... right? At least his is honest.

Ren slides her screen to lock it and turns back to him. The candle is guttering, and in dim light her face is softer. "I hope you're looking after each other. I always feel really protective of Tim, though I'm not sure why, since he's older than me and all. I think it's that lost puppy look he gets when he doesn't know exactly what he's doing."

 _I know exactly the look you mean_ , he doesn't say, because it seems strange to when she's so oblivious to the pills and tests behind the look. He was wearing it the first time they met, wandering back and forth along the same corridor trying to find the music department, like all the instruments weren't enough indication. "I think it's a musician thing. They just get lost in themselves sometimes. He's always been like that. You know."

"Were Tim and Jay a thing back in college?"

"Um, not to my knowledge." _So she knows about Jay_. That's more forthcoming than he'd have given Tim credit for, and he makes a mental note to congratulate him on it back home. "I think that's a recent... thing."

"So what have you been doing since then?"

And Brian's placed at a crossroads, with both forks in the road leading to shady, unforeseen destinations. Telling her the vague story he told his parents about falling in with a bad crowd isn't exactly good first date policy. So there's the band story. But he only used it in the interview under the assumption that they'd laugh it off, chalk it up to a misspent youth, and never mention it again. If they ended up back at Tim's place - _don't go too far_ \- and she asked for a demonstration and found out he was a mediocre guitarist at best, it wouldn't wash. And what if things went far enough she met his parents and they had contrasting stories about the missing years?

He takes a deep breath and searches for a focal point, eyes flitting to an fro, but the whole room is dancing candle flames and overhead fans blurred into circles and reflections of moving bodies in glass. His face is heating and words are flurries in his head devoid of worth and meaning. What's “Excuse me” when he can't breathe? He looks over her shoulder to the bar at the back of the room, running his eyes along the liquor bottles up top, up and down the different levels and taking in all the colours. It's so pretty in this light. They had an arrangement like that at the bar he interviewed at, too. He kept calm and carried on there. He can do it again. He places both hands flat on his knees, breathes in deep, and out again slowly. _There_. All under control.

"Oh, you know. Just what I can find, lawns that need mowing, dogs that need walking. Paying the bills, you know. I like being outside and..."

She cuts him off with a wave of her hand, a gold ring glinting in the candlelight. "You seem uncomfortable with that."

His jaw drops before he has chance to stop it. _Well, I am now_. "Not about that. Or about them, you know, back home. It's just... three's a crowd, I guess." It seems like a normal thing to say. She doesn't need to know how afraid he is of being one alone. "Not that I see a lot of them, with Tim working so much and Jay being, uh, out of town a lot. Seeing his parents. Looking for work, you know. I sometimes hear them, though."

 _What? Why was that in my head?_ Ren makes a noise like an engine starting up. "God damn it!" For a moment he's confused, until he sees Ren dabbing at a dark stain on her front with a napkin. It's the first time tonight she's lost her poise for so much as a second and she's glancing anxiously at the tables around them like a cat caught off-guard. "I have to look him in the eye tomorrow! Goodness. I think I need some fresh air," she blusters, fanning her face.

"We can stay here and spit more wine at one another if you prefer," he says, raising the glass to his lips.

"Hey, I don't know what you're into."

It's Brian's turn again. This time he's somewhat prepared and only snorts, acrid alcoholic smell filling his nose. "It's alright, though. We all get along well enough for now." For good measure, and because everyone seems to enjoy whining about it so much, he adds; "You know what it's like in this economy."

"Tell me about it. I live with three other girls and it's not likely to change after college, especially since studying Philosophy means I'll make an excellent store clerk for a long time yet."

"I find that hard to believe." It's not often you think of someone's good looks going to waste, but hers would if she spent all day under strip lighting selling frozen food and cleaning products. "You could probably model if it came to it." And now the blush is back again after subsiding for a minute or two.

" _Probably_?" She flips her hair, incredulous enough to worry him for a second. "I'm flattered, but I think not. I'd want to do something that involved more brain."

"Such as?"

"I mean, I'm not trying to criticise women who do modelling work or say they're all airheads or anything like that," she adds in a fluster. "But I'd go crazy, sat in a make-up chair all day. I guess I'm not sure what I want to do as a _career_ career, but it's not that. Can you imagine having your every move on camera like that? Not just for shoots, but going around the streets as well?"

 _Change subject. Now_ . "So, what's doing Philosophy like?" _Why am I trying to talk about that? I don't know anything to say about it_.

"It's just school. I don't know why you'd want to hear about it." She nods smugly as he averts his eyes, and continues. "Final year. I don't feel a whole lot wiser, but I'm getting good at pretending."

Their mains arrive, and the talk falls into a rhythm. Brian leans back into his seat to make room for the last morsels of penne marinara and only then realises how far forward he craned to talk to her. Does his face doesn't look too gaunt or old in the candlelight? With a jolt it hits him how close he came to ending up with tomato sauce on his tie. It's been so long since he wore one and it's flapping around like an untied shoelace, the knot too tight on his dry throat.

When the waiter disappears and calm returns, he coughs a couple of times to clear the quiet air for speaking again. "Still, I didn't make it that far. But I did about a year of Theatre."

"Of course. Tim told me you do a good Hamlet."

"Did he now?" What with Tim's idea of encouragement this morning – "If you're going to the Italian place, why don't you tell her about the time you thought Berlusconi was a type of pasta?" - it wouldn't surprise Brian to know he'd been imbibed with a long list of talents to demonstrate he doesn't actually possess.

Fortunately, Ren has her own opinion on this as well. "I was nearly in a production once, but nobody wanted a black Ophelia, so..."

 _She's so matter-of-fact about it_. Heavy words are thrown lightly enough Brian and his blue eyes stutter to a stop. The silence sits with a weight that begs reply, but he can't escape the feeling of speaking out of turn. "That's... awful. I guess it's good that you're talking about it, though. I don't think I've met anyone as upfront as you are."

"Talking around a problem and ignoring it doesn't help anyone, does it?" She's looking at a morsel of potato gnocci lodged on her fork like it's Hamlet's skull, and sighing. "'Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you' - Jean-Paul Sartre."

"Alright, I'll take your Jean-Paul Sartre and raise you a Jon Bon Jovi." He puts a hand to his chest. "When your world's crashing down like you've lost every round, stand your ground and ring the bells of freedom!" He's singing by the end, and finishes with a well-timed _ping_ of his glass.

Ren laughs and tips her hair over one shoulder. It falls into place without a snag, tumbling like raw silk. Does she have any idea that every move she makes looks right out of a perfume commercial? Evidence of her sly smile suggests that yes, she's perfectly aware, and maybe she's just the kind of person he needs to pull him well and truly out of the woods. But why did he think it was a good idea to start singing Bon Jovi to her? No doubt she's into the same sort of arty music Tim is – no power ballads without headphones, he was expressly instructed the day he moved in for real - and just as likely to lord it over him.

With impeccable timing, she says; "Anyone who has a problem with Bon Jovi has a problem with me. I've tried to get into, like, really obscure artsy stuff, just to challenge myself, but it goes right over my head." She smiles after her spiel and turns the menu over in her hand. "Dessert?"

"Not for me. I'm trying to get back in shape."

Her eyes run him up and down in a way that makes him feel he might as well be naked already. _I wouldn't say that was necessary_ , she might as well say.

 _Oh Lord_. Ren asks for the bill and gathers her things impatiently while they wait, throwing darting glances his way. They're about to leave. In prior experience this usually precipitates a guessing game about the other person's intentions and what was and wasn't proper. Not so with Ren and the way she's been drawing attention to her mouth since he walked in. If it's not on the cards for tonight, she's going to try it at some more socially acceptable time in the not too distant future. What would she think of his body if he was actually undressed and she saw the eclectic collection of scrapes and scars of origin he can't quite remember? By the time money changes hands, his chest has tightened and getting up to leave could be rising in court to hear a verdict. The night outside is too open, too big, loaded with too many possibilities.

He catches one foot on the leg of a table as they pass. They're spaced too close together and it's a choice between falling to his knees or catapulting over someone else's meal and going home with spaghetti sauce all over his torso. He puts his hands out before him -

Like he did when Tim ripped off the hood and threw him to the floor of the basement.

Like he did when he ran from the gunman through the woods and tripped into the stream, cold water biting him through ragged clothing.

Like he did when the metal connected with his head and felled him that first time in the choking dust of the burned hospital.

\- and he lands too hard on his right arm. Something under his hand snaps audibly. There's no pain. It's just someone's haphazard breadstick. He'd be laughing, except he can't force enough air into his lungs with the weight of eyes on him.

"You okay?" says Ren. She stays standing, looking around the room with the same cat-caught-doing-something-stupid air. A couple of waiters criss-cross with heads held high behind her like nothing's happening, but he can't breathe and his legs aren't strong enough to hold him up. The soft carpet under his hands could be gritty and broken ground, like it's going to cling under his fingernails.

She takes his hand in hers and leads him out. She's hunching her shoulders and looking at the ground, waving but briefly to the staff as she opens the door. The cold air is a welcome relief from the choking and the itch of the hood covering his face, wrapped around him like a phantom limb.

"Are you alright?" She's fussing with his collar and places a hand on his arm – but only now they're out of view of other people.

He breathes in cool air and the scent of petrol, the sound of glass clinking and laughter inside – _everything's normal_. "Fine. Just shocked myself a little, that's all. A bit embarrassing."

"You sound like you can hardly breathe. That doesn't suggest just embarrassment to me."

He fumbles in his pocket for his phone, trying to steady his sweat-slick hand after the incident back in the hospital, plastic flying every which way. _Fucking great_. The only cab number he has is eight years old and based in another state.

"Do you know if any buses are still running this late?"

"What are you looking at buses for? I'll get us a cab."

"Both of us?"

"Well, you do live on en route to my part of town."

"I don't have a whole lot of money to help you with it."

"I know."

Ren's crooked smile and the sway to her hips form a tacky neon sign pointing to 'Can I come back to your place?', whatever excuses she makes. And the thought makes his knees weak. It's been a very, very long time. His stamina for other physical activities has depleted, and he's had enough wine to make him sway as he stands, and there's no way for this to end well.

There were a lot of girls, back then. Maybe not for more than a couple of months, but he was never short of offers. Not that he ever bragged about it, and even thinking about it makes his skin crawl, but yeah. Girls have been off the agenda since coming around - there's been too much else going on, and with his clothes hanging off his depleted frame, maybe there's a lot he was trying to save himself from.

"Oh, for God's sake." Rain sluices from the umbrella as Ren turns to face him. With the most businesslike look on her face she pulls on his tie, bringing him down into a kiss. The sickly chemical taste of lipgloss and the sticky smear it leaves take him right back to hurried fondlings in the corners of college parties, but she moves her lips against his softly and deftly and tastes of red wine, not cheap vodka. The heady aftertaste awakens something and Brian sucks gently at her full lower lip. She licks at his in turn and prises them apart. His mouth is all over hers and the back of his mind tells him what a laughable Hollywood cliche all of this is, with the rain hammering down around them, but as his fingers slide over hers to hold up the umbrella it's silenced.

A clap of thunder booms overhead, and he draws a sharp breath. Ren smiles against him, presumably thinking it's pleasure. It's not. Behind his eyes plays footage of himself under a hood, breaking into his best friend's house on a stormy night like this and inducing a painful seizure for some reason lost to time. The kiss turns suffocating and he pulls away for air.

Perhaps that's why Tim and Jay stay in whatever they've got going on; it hits him all at once, a rubble of realisation avalanching all around him, harder than the rain. How are any of them supposed to have a relationship outside of what's happened to them? When Tim used to talk about having some aura that put people off and told them to stay away Brian tried to convince him it was only paranoia talking, and all the consolations echo in his head, but the distance between himself and this woman looking at him with puzzled eyes is almost tangible. Is it really paranoia, or a genuine effect of the forces who touched them?

Trying to explain his disappearance and the chain of events that brought him back to someone outside of it isn't something he'd considered. It just went without saying. But the idea of falling in love with someone and keeping a wedge between them, that he was a traveling vagrant running around with a cheap mask, doing... _no idea, actually_. The strings of codes and clues his hooded self has tried to leave for Jay are just as incomprehensible to him now.

And Ren stands by with her wit and her perfect hair and every opportunity laid out in front of her, and she deserves better. They've had a good time tonight. Their humour is clearly compatible, he's open to her interests, and if she's anything like as bold in bed as she is in voice, the hungry look in her eyes holds a promise. They'd go home and it would be incredible and they'd meet up again next week - they could see one of the arty films she's interested in, or he'd take her dancing somewhere. Maybe in time they can relieve themselves of their awkward living situations in one blow and move in together; with their joint income, because a job is bound to come along some day, they could get one of those places with the balconies by the river, and that would be beautiful to wake up to every day, almost as beautiful as she is. They'd get married and Tim would be best man, Jay could take the wedding pictures, his mother would cry into the vol au vents all night, and Paul can balance the books or something.

And all the while he's be looking over his shoulder when he was supposed to be looking only at her, lying with every breath, taking the beauty from their wedding photos glaring at the camera like a man before the firing squad.

Here is Ren with her philosophy books and her outspoken bravery, thinking she knows everything, and she knows _nothing_. She's never feared for her life or instilled the same clenching panic in another person. Her straight back and direct glare prove she's never doubted for a second who she is. He's been out into the feral, the unknown, the dark and unfathomable corners of the mind where the same rules don't apply and you can't code it or quantify it, analyse it, where you'd apply any school of thought to what your head made you do and come up no wiser every time. How do you ever come back from that?

"I'm sorry, Ren," he says, a thickness rising to his throat as he turns away and runs toward the bus stop. He's never going to share his life with someone and with his every word a performance he rehearses he's never going to pursue acting out of choice, either. She calls after him, in sync with another clap of thunder. The staccato strike of stilettos on the wet pavement follows him, but only for a few seconds, before the sound dies slowly in the other direction.

 


	15. Finale

_Don't think you're the only one who has harboured a self-hate  
_ _I'm just as guilty of selling all that my own sweet soul creates  
_ _Now don't feel bad next time my memory comes creeping  
_ _You've got your own bed now, I suggest that's the one you sleep in_  
\- Hüsker Dü

Tim wakes at the sound of groaning exertion from the music room. He lifts himself onto one elbow, easing out the stiffness of another night on the couch. Perfectly framed by the doorway, Brian's upper body appears periodically, lowering to the floor. He checks the time on his phone – 8:15. Brian lifts off the ground and out of sight again. _What the hell is wrong with you?_

 _Fuck you and your being enthusiastic about life_. After a detour to the fridge to pick up some juice Tim steps over Brian's legs and retrieves the ukulele from the side of one armchair. Brian's feeling the burn and hisses, so Tim drags the chair directly into his line of vision and sits. He throws his legs over the arm and reclines, grinning, in the manner of a Georgian dandy, only with significantly better hair. Brian ignores him. He strums the strings softly. Brian ignores him. He lights up and flashes his best customer service smile.

"Having fun over there?"

Brian ignores him, throwing his body up off the ground with a little more effort than before.

"You want to come over here and wipe the smile off my face, don't you?"

He growls. Tim takes a long, leisurely drag on the cigarette, sighing with pleasure.

"But you can't. Because you've started and you're going to finish."

Brian's done after a dead and agonising eternity for him and he springs to his feet, swinging his arms. "Laugh all you like. You'll be dead before I am."

"You only get so many heartbeats, Brian," Tim calls a he walks to the sink to splash his ruddy face.

Tim puts the ukulele down by the arm of his chair and rests his arms across his stomach – not a lot of sit-ups went into the shaping of it, that's for sure. He's not hanging over his jeans quite as much as he used to, not since two years of stress and living on a shoestring have taken their toll, but he's no Brian, either. Having a Greek god for a best friend used to bother him, when they'd be walking somewhere together and he'd catch the roundness of his stomach next to Brian's abs while passing a window, but he has bigger problems than being beautiful. He used to _feel_ it. Jay's hands seemed to gravitate toward his hips, pressing their bodies together and stroking him there once they were finished. _No. Not now_. He leans forward and moves his hand to the arms of the chair.

"I feel like I've hardly seen you since you got back here."

Brian's been tending lawns and raking leaves from the front of the sidewalk for the last couple of days, for a pittance, but it's good for him to be out of the house, especially after Tim walked in to find him nursing a beer over another letter beginning “Thank you for your interest, but...”

At least he's smiling again now. "I'm on the cusp of professionalism. I haven't got time to waste with you all day."

Tim smiles. It's probably the bored housewives along the street who've got him working on his physique again - them or the date, which he hasn't elaborated on other than boasting he made poised and ice-cool Ren spit a drink. He walks over and sits on the floor in front of Tim, throwing back his neck to guzzle water. Brian's wearing only a tank top and boxers ensemble which is not professional by any stretch of the imagination - to which it leaves very little, it must be said, clinging to him with sweat and revealing a lot more than Tim really wanted to see. _Perhaps it's all I deserve for taunting him_.

“I'm meant to be mowing her lawn again some time next week. Grass around here must shoot up like worms in the rain,” Brian muses, arcing his back with clicking joints.

“That's what she tells you. The thirst is real.”

Brian mid-gulp comes perilously close to choking on it. “Maybe if you let me do it topless next time I'll get better pay.”

"At least your love life will be a little easier if you've got money coming in."

Brian murmurs acknowledgement, and stares into his water bottle.

"You are seeing her again, right?" Whatever his thoughts on dating, he's kind of rooting for Ren and Brian and the beautiful multi-talented superhuman children they could have, singing Old MacDonald in three European languages as soon as they start to speak and reading _War and Peace_ before they're old enough to physically lift it.

"I guess so. Probably." He's picking at a loose corner of the label on his bottle and shifting where he sits.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine! Are _you_ alright? You're in a very good mood today, what's wrong with you?"

"I'm happy for you is all. You're seeing Ren, you're back in touch with your family, and it's just odd that you're not talking much about it. Usually you'd have all your photos up. I thought I was going to endure a lot more about every slight thing little Grace was doing."

"Are you complaining?"

"I guess not, but... are you _sure_ you're okay? You seem a little awkward about it."

"It was a good trip! I caught up with Paul, I met his family, I had fun."

Brian can't meet his eyes as he speaks, passing the water bottle from one hand to another. From his elevated position on the chair, Tim can read it. " _But_ there's a voice in your head telling you that if you'd really had a good trip, you wouldn't need to convince yourself you'd had a good trip?"

The bottle fall to the ground and rolls in a half-circle. Brian bites his lip, staring out of the window, shaking his head.

When he speaks it's a whisper pitched in the key of 'get out of my head'. "Damn it, Tim. Is this what you have to live with all the time? Second-guessing everything that goes through your own head?"

"Pretty much," he says, in the same breathy tone. This conversation's just for them.

Brian falls down with his head in his hands, he _deflates_ , and without the trademark grin on display, Tim wouldn't know him as his best friend the charmer, the motivator, the party-starter.

"This is ridiculous! We're three grown men, seeing things and sobbing and shouting all over the place."

"Brian, it's an illness. There's not an age limit on it."

He rips the last shreds of the label and discards it to his side. "I just want my time back."

Tim holds his tongue. Since they set up a halfway happy home here, Brian hasn't breathed a word of the last five years. _This is good, but.._. Brian doesn't do this. He's always had the answers; no-one's staring because they have their own problems, you wouldn't feel ashamed for taking medication if any of your other organs weren't working, it's just the chemical in your brain making you see that outside the window. He doesn't _question_ anything. And Tim's about to make it worse.

"There's something else I need to tell you."

"Fucking great."

"I left it until now because you were anxious enough about the date."

"Well, you can put me out of my misery now, _please_."

Tim takes a deep breath. "It's about your brother. Before I left last week, he spoke to me when no-one else was listening. He was - I don't know. He'd had a lot to drink and he wasn't the most coherent person I've ever heard, but the main thing is, he's not buying your story. He thinks you've done something so awful you have to talk about the bad crowd to cover it up."

Brian shrugs and shakes his head. "Maybe I should tell him the truth instead and see what he thinks."

"I don't think he's going to do anything. I don't even know what he could do. I guess you'll just have to try and build bridges."

"How? He's not the same person. And neither am I."

"That doesn't have to be a bad thing."

"Maybe it is, though? Look at me. Everything I was ever good at... I'm fucking twenty-six. It's just not going to happen." He looks out of the window like he expects to see a surprise. "I think I'd still enjoy it. Acting and stuff. I could do it at an amateur level or something. I just wish it hadn't turned out that way."

Tim checks the time again – it's on his side, for once. "Look, I've got to go. We can talk more when I get home, and if you need it I'll call you when I take my lunch break."

"Just ignore me, Tim. I'm being a sad bastard. I'll snap out of it later."

"I hope so. But you know you don't have to, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm off work as of tomorrow, so if there's anything you need, then..."

"Oh man, I'd forgotten. And Jay's out tomorrow, so I guess that's good timing."

Tim nods in the hope his shuffling off won't betray him. The house looks less like a scene from _Resident Evil_ than it did a week ago, but the living room and all that glitters in it remains untouched. It's not going to much of a homecoming and Jay's voice sounds in his head as he surveys the broken pieces, telling him much the same in that sulky way of his. Not that Tim would know. Tim hasn't been in to see him this week - he's working, he's tired, and visiting hours are too restricted.

 _How convenient for you_.

"Maybe when you're off, we could all go and do something? Getting out of this place can't be a bad idea."

"Where do we go with no money?"

"We could go camping or something."

"In the woods?"

"Okay. I didn't think that through."

"We'll talk about it when I get home, right?" He keeps his voice level and soft, but he's bolting for the door, catching his foot on the leg of the couch as he goes and only breathing as he fastens his safety belt.

Only there's still the rest of the day to get through. Under the glare of strip lighting every second seems thrown into sharp relief, dragging on until his time in the place is up. The Pandora's Box of the Billboard radio creeping throughout the shop throws horror after sickly sweet manufactured horror at him, offering hope in the shape the Clash singing about working for the clampdown, before regressing to autotuned headache. He's called out to help unload a delivery van and the noise shifts from predictable and formulaic to sudden, sharp – leaping out of his skin at the driver shouting and wooden palettes striking the ground. He hides in the alcove of the fire escape to watch the van drive away and lights up, burning through it and letting his shoulders drop, just _stopping_ , for the first time since he left the house.

Jay gets out of hospital tomorrow. Being in a relationship is supposed to involve some measure of excitement at seeing the other person, isn't it? Because right now, his vision of greeting Jay in the hospital – struggling to think of something to say, trying to decide what he wants to hear – rings truer to waiting to see a psychiatrist. He takes a drag from his shaking hand. Was it lonely or freeing to have a whole bed to himself?

He slips back inside, jumps at the tinkling of the bell over his head, and waits for acknowledgement from Ren that never comes. Her mouth sits in a straight line, down from the supermodel pout she usually affects. If she was mad at Tim he'd know about it by now, so with this and Brian's minor meltdown this morning, all signs point to last night. _Not that it's any of my business_. But all day she's wringing her hands in her hair and cursing herself under her breath when she drops a box of gum. What was it she said last week? Talking about Jay and asking how he was doing; _you don't have to tell me but you don't have to keep it to yourself, either_.

He calls out softly when the shop is empty and they're switching stations. "Ren?"

"Hmm?"

 _Oh, great_ . Now he's got to finish what he's started. He forces his eyes from an automatic nosedive in direction of the floor to meet hers. She's going to think he's intruding, interfering, and _as if_ he could possibly turn out any advice someone so much more intelligent won't have come up with already. But what would a normal person, without a list of hangups as long as his medical history and a persona formed from the negative space around his omitted truths, do in this situation? They'd check to be sure a co-worker - a nice person, whom they genuinely liked - was okay. Ren's not like him and his sharp edges. She carries her acid tongue like a raincoat for all the world to wash away from. If it's sprung a leak, there's got to be a good reason for it.

"Look, I can't help noticing that you're a little... off today. I hope you don't think I'm prying here."

She cocks an eyebrow and reveals nothing.

"I remembered what you said last week, about how I could talk to you if anything was bothering me, and I just wanted you to know that goes both ways. We've worked together for a while now, we do kind of know each other. Enough that I can tell when you're not acting like you. Not that I'm pushing. You can tell me to -"

"Why do you sound like you're asking me on a date?" She reaches out a slim hand - pillar box red nails, too glamourous for pushing register buttons - and pats him on the head. "It's fine. That's what friends are for, no?"

They're friends. _Don't grin. She'll think you're weird._ "Well... is everything okay with you? I can't help worrying after last night. Brian... he's the nicest guy, but sometimes his brain doesn't filter everything he says too well. He gets kind of excitable and forgets to think, so if he was a little full-on, I just hope you don't think less of us."

She snorts. " _He_ was too full-on? No. In truth I think I scared him a little."

"It's not like the Brian I know to have a problem with that."

"Yeah. I mean, to look at him you'd think he had women throwing themselves at him all the time. Some guys back offt when they see they're not going to be able to tell you what to wear or show you off in front of their friends, but he really didn't seem the type."

"He's not. So, are you seeing each other again, or?"

"If he wants to. I can't tell. I thought it was going well, and then he just... bailed. He said he was going to walk home, even though I said I'd pay for a cab."

How Brian to just try to work it off with exercise.

"I'd really like to see him more, though. I can't work the two of you out at all.” She smirks again, but when she laughs softly to herself, the sound is strained “And it intrigues me."

Tim checks his plain clothes, sweeps around him at his unassuming job. "What's there to work out?"

"You're two hot guys sharing a house, one of you gets to take out a girl like me, you have a relationship and I'm sure you're very happy with him. And yet, all your smiles look fake, and the whole time I'm talking to either one of you, you sound like you're reading off a script. It's something in your timing. You wait just a beat too long to sound like you're giving a real response."

 _A director said the same thing to me once_. For a second, he's back in camera, with a part to play and the little red light glaring at him as he stammers what seems right – a process that didn't stop once the camera was switched off. "I, um..."

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure I'll have a lot of fun figuring it out."

The door opens, the little ringing bell a sound he'd never have imagined inducing the nervous knot in his gut that it does, and they spring apart. Tim plasters on his best customer service smile in lieu of incoming annoyance - but it's worse. It's their manager.

"How's the dream team doing today?"

Tim mumbles syllables resembling 'okay' and buries himself in unpacking a box of chips. Something about Nate takes him right back to doctors' offices and staring at the marks on the floor – it's the phony smile. Perhaps his skin is stretched up into his shock of floppy blonde hair so that he has to keep his mouth permanently upturned, or he just wants to show off the snow-blind whiteness of his treated teeth. Or it could be that without the smile his face would crack and all kinds of dark things would come spilling out. Tim sticks the same false jollity all over his features. The ghost of a cigarette is lodged between his fingers, tingling with craving. _I'm definitely not paid enough for this_.

“I've been mulling it over and I think I've decided on 'spook-tacular' for the Halloween deals,” he announces, sticking his hands in the pockets of his skinny jeans and leaning back.

“I just can't wait to get into the spirit of things,” says Ren.

“You've been thinking about it, too.”

Ren smiles sweetly at him, but as she scuttles past Tim to take her place behind the register, she hisses, “No, this is spontaneous and it's called wit.”

Tim chokes back laughter. _Has he heard?_ Not likely. He just struts around, surveying his land. Nate mostly appears every once in a while to look at the camera and help himself to the cheap wine tucked away at the back.

A whole two weeks without putting up with any of this. No alarms, no watching the long hand of the clock, no getting home and falling asleep in his chair. Without a schedule to stick to, he'll be spared to talk things through with Brian, tell him it gets better, maybe help him with some applications – only Jay's coming back. He's going to spend his first day of freedom working out medical bills, aware his holiday pay leaves a lot to be desired.

Would any of this had happened if they'd stayed in separate beds? There's no neat line drawn in the sand, no timeline marking exactly where the wheels came off, but it's doubtful. You don't load the same expectations of calm and devotion onto your friends as you do your... boyfriend. Partner. Significant other. Whatever you call it. Likewise, you take time and care to sift though to find the gentlest words for a friend in need, never letting rip with the full force of your wrath as you might to a lover who's scorned you. Is that sign enough that a line is being crossed in your perspective between person and possession? Tim shakes himself. All he knows is that if hormonal impulse had an off-switch, an awful lot of people would be an awful lot happier.

“I _have_ a boyfriend!” Ren is behind the counter contorting her face in battle against an involuntary scowl. The face of the man in front of her is hidden, but the coat is familiar, and Tim's seen the sort of half-joking leer that will be written on it often enough. An I-know-that-you-know-that-I-know sort of thing.

Nate strolls over once he's been sent away with a death stare dogging his heels. “Try not to let them get to you, Ren. It's not like you to lose your temper.”

“I know. That wasn't professional. But I have to deal with this every time he comes in here.”

“Maybe tomorrow you could pick an outfit that's a little more... conservative?”

“Maybe I should come in my onesie next time and he'll be the same because my _ankles_ are showing!” She whispers in a hiss like escaping steam, but a group of girls leafing through the greetings cards by the register look to her and nod agreement anyway. Out of everything Tim has seen before him, all the blood and all the beating and the trips through space and time, the image of Ren in a onesie might be the hardest to reconcile with reality. In the flesh she's wearing a red silk shirt buttoned about halfway down her chest. He's seen worse on Nate over the summer, but _of course_ it's another rule for him. Ren disappears behind the bead curtain, muttering about cigarette stocks behind the counter.

"Get her to calm down, would you, Tim? And try to _smile!_ "

Being caught on camera giving his boss the finger doesn't seem conducive to continued employment. _Two weeks and you don't have to set foot in this place once_. Tim pushes back the curtain with enough noise to announce his arrival. Ren's standing in the centre of the room with her fingers in her hair. “Do you want to switch for today? I'll deal with all of them out there if you want to just do the stock and disappear.”

“I'm not upset. I just need to be angry for a couple minutes.”

"You... I guess you should just try not to let it get to you. Just go home and forget about it."

She snorts laughter. "You think I can _go home_ from this? Like I'm not going to get catcalled every step of the way home? Like I can't even go for a drink after work without someone hitting on me?"

"I see what you mean."

“And what if I hadn't got the job, Tim? What if it was another girl who didn't know how to stand up for herself? And she had to come in, every day, shaking because she knew what she was going to get. I have to speak up for her.”

Tim nods. It's not his place to interject, but more than that, what she's saying stirs up senses dulled by cheap booze and bloodstains on the bedroom carpet. Putting others ahead of herself based on conjecture and theory. _Now, who does that remind you of?_

While they're at it, Tim's mind takes a left turn to treat him to a selection of other water-muddying memories. Jay taking a break from his crusade to laugh at some terrible B-movie on the free channel with him. Jay asking him to play a song, or at the very least pick up his instruments again, and Tim promising he would when everything settled. Explaining the rule of thirds while he showed Tim how to operate the camera, making his videos look pretty, finding beauty in the world even then. Cleaning up coffee overspills on their table to make the server's day ever so slightly easier, with that sheepish way of tucking his hair behind his ear. And it takes Tim's breath away. He still owes him a song.

“ _Tim?_ Are you there?”

“Yeah, uh, sorry. Go on.”

Not that she needs the encouragement. “And I did the worst thing, saying I already have a boyfriend. He'll only leave me alone when he thinks someone else already owns me. It's just... You know those days where you just want the whole world to crumble into the sea?” She looks at him with searching narrowed eyes. “You don't really know any different, do you?”

Tim shrugs. If the behaviour of people like Nate and Trenchcoat back there is normal, healthy, even encouraged, the crumbling thing sounds like a pretty good idea. “I'm sorry. I wish Nate was more helpful.”

Feeling anxious at work is nothing novel. His first few weeks left him nodding off at the end of the day not so much for being on his feet, but for the swooping, rollercoaster sensation in his stomach every time someone walked up to the counter to him. Now, where he's not exactly at ease around strangers, but at least the mere act of opening his mouth to say "Good afternoon" isn't a wild adrenaline rush on a par with any thrill ride.

Although, Ren's talking about something very different. It doesn't seem fair to liken his very individual circumstances to the monumental list of reasons it sucks to be a woman. Being told to smile isn't so fun, but it's not comparable. Besides, they're all right. He _should_ smile more. They're just going to need to give him something to smile about first.

"And you just know that if he wasn't in a place to get sued for it - hell, even if he just didn't know I live with a law student - he'd be exactly the same."

"He does seem pretty observant where your necklines are concerned."

"Yeah. And he thinks I don't notice. It's not just me being paranoid or thinking every man alive must find me attractive because I've never felt like that with you. Even before I knew about Jay. Brian's not like that either." She stops and laughs, but it sounds sad. "More's the pity. I'm not infatuated with him or anything. I just..."

She doesn't like not understanding things. She's so like Jay at times. She's naïve, in her own way. She thinks she knows everything because a book he wouldn't understand told her so, but if she saw what they'd seen she'd follow the rabbit hole – _curiouser and curiouser –_ just as they did. Apparently arriving for the job as a three for the price of one, filling roles of gay best friend, general assistant, and guessing game, Tim walks back into the store trembling. _I'm not your puzzle to solve_. Not hers, not a doctor's, not Jay's when he was on his little detective mission. He is not an object of intrigue, a conversation piece, or a prize.

He goes back to the register, noticing the impatient old lady with an armful of chocolates. And someone's left their phone behind next to the register – _great_. Another mystery. Only it's set on a chain, and one of the keys dangling in front of it looks kind of like Tim's key for the store. Perhaps there's a way to redeem this day after all.

He leans over the counter to get a better look around. The place is quiet, but it won't be for long. “Ren! Come look at this. He's left his phone behind.”

She trots up to the counter and stands with her hands on her hips as Tim presses in a number Brian, who's never had bad blood with anyone and never had an excuse to be evil enough, told him years back. “What're you doing?”

“Calling the speaking clock in Brazil.” He puts the phone to rest under the counter. “I'll just leave it there 'til we open tomorrow.”

“Oh _shit_.” She bends at the waist in shocked laughter. “He's gonna notice.”

“I'll say one of the customers must've done it. And then I'll tell him to smile.”

Once she's back behind the counter she's stood like an admiral on deck and they share a smirk as she rings through a packet of Brazil nuts. She'd fit in anywhere. Well, maybe not back at the old hospital. There's people such as her, who find their own way through the woods and learn to survive. And others, like him, who go through life like driftwood, landing where they may until they're worn away.

And it's not going to get any better when he's sitting in the same mess at home, looking at the same junk on these shelves, stockpiling broken memories. It could be that the idea of driving for hours and overnighting in motels has become synonymous with finding answers, or maybe he just misses the taste of gas station beef jerky so much. But it's better than just waiting around, growing sores. Why should he just take what he's given all the time? Brian's mother's voice whispers an echo; _do something for yourself, sweetie_. The clock keeps ticking, and when his shift finally releases him, Tim gets in the car and turns pointedly in the out of town direction. When you've seen but a little of the world and don't much like the part you have, it's time to hit the road and bring it to you.

 


	16. Bridge

_Storm, wind me out_  
 _So I can feel it in another way they won't talk about_  
 _Worn masochist's sigh_  
 _A distant figure in a photograph, another eye_  
 _I know your reason has stalled and your freedom's dissolved in your passion, dear_  
 _It's burning your eyes and it's killing your mind and it's broken your atmosphere_  
 _But should you find it obscene in that grey_  
 _Old dramatics hear a young heart say  
_ _Lord, if you got lungs, come on, shout me out_  
\- TV on the Radio

Jay narrows his eyes and clenches his fist around cold metal. _Right, you fucker_.

Swearing at it, staring at it, threatening it – none of it's going to help him. Jay swallows, but his throat thickens just peeking into his soup bowl, clenching in advance of this oncoming assault to his senses. The bowl is looking back, a black mark on what might have been a bean in a past life like an unblinking iris staring him down. Which is a great help in making the thin orange slop, the grains the concoction was was reconstituted from still swirling and catching the low light, any more appealing.

He lifts his spoon and stirs to see if it'll thicken, but all he does is stir up the eye of newt and toe of frog floating in it. The spoonful he raises falls back to the bowl with a _splat._ On its way down it'll make the same sound as it hits his stomach, and now he's going to bring up the glass of milk he had for breakfast. The three witches in the kitchen have looked up from whatever toil and trouble they're brewing now to glare at him, like it's some personal offence if he doesn't finish every morsel of the soup they expertly added hot water to. _But I just don't want this_. The dry roll with its symbiotic rock-hard single-serving butter stuck in a lump in the middle isn't helping, either. But there's nothing for it. With the phrase 'group therapy on Monday' lit up in neon lights in his mind, Jay lifts the spoon, places it in his mouth, and swallows.

His face winkles, cringing back from the taste, only it's in his mouth and right up into his nose where there's no getting away from it. Better yet, the runny brew has had enough time to grow cold since everyone else filed out of the canteen around him. The grains of its powdered past life rub against his tongue. Tearing off some bread, chewing hurts his jaw, so he gulps down more soup for respite. A glass of warm water that's already stale and bubbling sits before him, waiting to wash the taste away. He keeps his eyes on it, a runner pounding for the finish line. The vegetables are dry like skin between his teeth, shuddering with each bite.

_Come on, Jay. You can metabolise this and have energy to do things. It's awesome._ Yes, it's only painful because of his stomach readjusting itself after so long empty and yes, he only has himself to blame. But it _hurts_ . He's choking and swelling. He stops to take a deep breath and a sip of water. _This is healthy?_ He crumbles a little of the roll between his fingers. The bread goes down easier if he wets it in the bowl first. One mouthful follows another. The clock reads fifteen minutes later than it did when he sat down, and sweat is beading his brow.

There's an anorexic girl a few doors down who might have advice for how to get out of this – if he's going to build his appetite back up it's not going to happen here, with this hardly-even-food. But she was in here today, eating a bowl of cereal like it was nothing and smiling at Carl the Poet with her thin arms on display in a T-shirt for the first time since he's been here. So it's clean plates or the threat of another week here. The metal is scraping against the bottom of the bowl, three or four mouthfuls of gritty dregs left to go. He closes his eyes and lifts the spoon again, and again, and again.

Jay slumps back in his seat and pushes the bowl away. He's done it. He's really done it. The warm water, coppery with metalwork residue, flows down his throat like the sweetest ambrosia cleaning away the last greasy remnants of soup. It's a short-lived victory. His stomach cramps as he stands, bloated so he can't straighten his back without straining it as he hobbles along the corridor to his room.

The sun streams through the windows to illuminate the notebook waiting in the centre of the bed. Jay sits down, pulls the covers up around his lap, and rereads what he came up with this morning. He did as Andrea told him and wrote down his little sea thing - good a way as any to while away five minutes, and something of an excuse for not joining everyone else in the TV room. It's part of her challenge for him to write a paragraph a day. Something to aim for, and that's the most important thing, apparently. Impulse said to laugh in her face, but since he's here a while yet, he might as well try, if only to prove her wrong. _There. It's happening and I still don't think the world is a wonderful place after all_. Seven spidery paragraphs are taking shape on the page nonetheless, two from yesterday's session. He ran out of words pretty quickly, though, and started doodling the scene in scratchy pen lines on the corner of the page.

It's not much of a drawing – he was never good at anything more than stick figures – but the composition's not too bad. He drew wispy lines for grass on the edge of a cliff as a frame, and the darker block of the sea is broken up by the reflection of... something. Sun or moon? Lighting says moon, so he draughts wavy lines connoting darkness into a square in the corner. A half-circle rising over the ocean stays white. The figure he drew looking out to see is a little indistinct now, so he circles the pen a few times over the right side of the body, in line with the light source. A sliver of moon is the only illumination on this man dark enough to cut a hole in the night.

_I could use that_. He scribbles the phrase in the opposite corner to work in later. The cleaner is doing the rounds and might as well be sucking out his brain with the vacuum, for all it's helping his concentration. Words present themselves but there's always something not quite right about them, seeming out of sequence with the others. Maybe if he had more resources. Or if he wasn't in an environment where the mere act of giving him a pen was contentious.

He frowns and runs his tongue over the film that's built up there since last he brushed, which was... _when?_ They might not be allowed floss but he could still give them a once-over. It couldn't hurt and it's better than the faint tomato residue from the soup clogging his mouth.

He squeezes a little paste from the tube – from the end and not the middle, as Tim spend so much time berating him for. No mint plant in the wild tastes like this. The sharp shock shoots rights up his nose and waters his eyes, overpowering the soup, and the bristles could be garroting on his gums. He spits, and reddened foam slips around in the bottom of the sink. His knees tremor just as they did as he approached the basin in that ruined house, stumbling in the dark and finding the blood encrusted around the bottom, and then – he turns the faucet as far as it will go, rinsing it away, and splashes his face. And because he's an idiot who never learns, he makes the mistake of checking himself in the mirror. Still gaunt, still red-eyed and etched with lines of sleep deprivation, now with some sexy bleeding gums to match. He sighs, and turns back to his notebook.

_I could put down the wrong words, I guess_ . Maybe if he purges his brain of those, declutters the shop floor, it'll be easier to find better ones. He's scribbling strings of lively verbs – _glanced, moved_ – that don't quite fit the solemn scene. Better ones will come.

With today's dose of productivity out of the way, Jay picks up his phone to waste a little more of the hospital wifi while he still has chance. His current favourite is a minute-long video of two pigeons walking in circles, set to a jaunty little synth polka. At one point, the birds synchronise their head-bobbing to the synthetic bass and a grin spreads across his face every time. Too bad the rest of the emergency room didn't seem to delight in it quite as much as he did. The happy little tune wouldn't sound out of place in one of his old Nintendo games, where all he had to do was keep going in one direction and press buttons to watch out for monsters. He's zig-zagging his shoulders to the music as the door opens for Andrea and... _Brian_?

Not Tim. Surely he's been told today is the day? He's coming to pick him up, right? Jay's heart leaps into his throat, banging to be let out. Maybe Tim couldn't get the day off work, or maybe he's waiting in the car. He hates hospitals. He was all jittery and fidgety every time he came to visit while Jay was having his gun wound repaired. Tim shouldn't have to put himself through that just for his sake. No need to worry. Tim must have sent Brian in to do what he couldn't.

Andrea holds the door for Brian, who's hugging thin arms around himself and eyeing all corners of the room but the one where Jay's perched on the bed. In a white T-shirt a size too big for him, he's smaller and slimmer than the marble statue type Jay always pictures. He's barely even taller than grey-haired and wiry Andrea behind him.

Jay forces a smile. The sooner he gets out of here, the sooner he can get a quiet moment, maybe a drink to level him out. Tim's probably just working. The idea of spending more time with Brian, though... He's avoiding Jay's eyes and fiddling with his sleeve.

“Hey, Jay,” he says in a voice as bright as the sun on the sheets, but nothing like as natural. He's still holding himself as he takes a seat, totally uninvited, and whips his phone out. He glances at the screen and replaces it right away, but keeps his hand in the weighted pocket. “You're looking well. Isn't he looking well?”

“I heard you left a clean bowl today, Jay,” says Andrea. “Nice one.”

“That's great!” says Brian, his voice now reminiscent of a cub scout leader about to hand him his soup-eating badge. If they really have to keep these tabs on everything he does, couldn't they at least try to sound genuine about it? And so much for the idea that he doesn't really attract attention when he's out in public.

“You've shown enough signs of being stable that they're still happy to let you discharge yourself today,” she says, her pace measured in a way that suggests _she_ isn't so sure he's out of the danger zone. Rose-tinted as they may be, she misses nothing about him behind those half-moon glasses of hers. “Are you feeling ready?”

He nods. “Thank you. For all your help.” _Some quality acting, there_. His flat-line voice carries all the emotion of one of those automated calls telling you about the Hawaiian holiday you've won and asking for your bank details, only after the speaker's downed a handful of benzos and been hit a couple times by a bus. But he keeps himself pointed towards the door, and straightens his shoulders. “Where's -”

“I brought you something,” says Brian, holding out two loops of thick black wool. Sweatbands. “I thought that if you put those on no-one would have to see, you know... Not that I think you _should_ be embarrassed or anything. Just, you know, in case you were.”

He's trying, but he's out of his depth and checking his phone again. _Yeah, I'm so athletic, people are totally going to buy that I wear these on my way back from the gym_. The most passionate Jay's ever been about sports was that one time he penned an involved essay in High School about the connotations of football players' fixation with penetrating the other team's rear end, and his only attained fitness goal to date the speed and stealth with which he avoided a beating afterwards. But since he and Tim only thought to bring T-shirts, they're the best disguise he has for the bandages, so he slips them on.

“Where's Tim?”

Brian looks at his phone again in response to the question, and crosses his legs. “You'll see him when you get back. I'm going to walk you home now.”

_Walking_. Great. There was time to listen to maybe a song and a half during the ride home last time, so that's... five minutes driving? His legs tremble. He'll be able to add 'leg cramps' to the ever-growing list of discomforts, fitting in nicely with his aching stomach and the weird things this unyielding mattress has done to his spine.

Andrea turns to Brian. “You say one of you is at home more or less all the time?”

“I'm looking for a job right now, but nothing's coming, so, yeah. For now.”

He peers at his phone again, rubbing the screen – is he trying to summon a genie? Wait on an answer like it's a magic eight ball? Either way, it looks like they're after the same answer.

“Good. I'm going to give you my home number,” and she hands Brian a scrap of paper. “Anything out of the ordinary, and either of you can get in touch with me.”

_Don't I get a say in any of this?_ Still, Jay could laugh, in spite of everything. It's bubbling up in his stomach, mixing with the soup, and keeping a lid on it is like trying to zipper an overstuffed suitcase. He purses his lips to hold it back. He's done it. He's really done it. He's going home ahead of group therapy on Monday.

“Of course,” says Andrea, “I don't feel quite comfortable letting you go without any aftercare. Which is why I'm inviting you to join us for our group therapy hour on Monday.”

It's almost funny. Perhaps they can see his shoulders deflate, like a burst balloon. Unlikely – Brian's still wishing on his phone, and Andrea is staring at him hawk-like. She said _invite_ , but Jay can't shake the idea that it's an offer he can't refuse.

“It's so close to your house, after all.”

Jay's about to affirm when Brian's phone rings. A couple of notes of an old Stones song reverberate around the room before he answers.

“Where the hell have you -” he begins, then looks around to check for the off-chance no-one heard him, and drops his voice. “I'm at the hospital. Whereabouts are you?”

Though it's only buzzing, Jay can just make out Tim's voice on the other end. _Fuck_. This isn't good. Nothing about this is good. From Brian's nervous eyes shooting every which way across the room to the way he sounds like he's reading from a script, there's bad news. Tim's not here.

“You're okay, right?” More buzzing. Brian furrowing his brow. But no exclamations. So at least he's not hurt in any way, and what a great person Jay is for only just now thinking of that. With his shouts and the clockwork way he gets up for work every morning it's easy to forget about the silver netting of scars on Tim's skin, especially since Jay hasn't had access to those parts of him in a while.

“But what are you doing _there_?”

Jay turns to Andrea, like she's more equipped to decode this than he is, but she's only staring out of the window and probably wishing the bed would hurry up and free itself.

Tim falls quiet on the other end. The room is deathly still and on the edge of its seat for Brian's reply. He's sitting with his jaw almost on the floor. “You wanted to see the sea?”

_I can see the sea and the sea can see me_. Childhood trips before his age hit double digits demanded that recital. He covers his mouth and blinks through his swimming vision. Tim wanted to take him to see the sea.

His drawing of the clifftop catches his eye. Why he's thinking of childhood road trips now he's not sure, but it could go in the story or whatever it is he's writing. He scribbles in a corner, but his hands are shaking and the letters splinter.

“I don't fu – I don't believe you at all.” Buzz buzz, and Brian's shaking his head. “Okay, whatever. Do what the hell you want and while you're off pretending to be in a great American novel I'll just wait here on your sick boyfriend 'til you get tired of it. It's not like Brian has anything else to do, right?” He stuffs the phone back into his pocket and throws himself back into the chair.

Silence. So that's it. Tim's gone and passed the load onto Brian, leaving him to break the news, too. He's sat there gripping the edge of the chair and searching for the right words, imagining they exist. It might be kind of fun to let him sit there and squirm, but that would mean staying in this sickly smiling hell-hole for longer.

“That's everything covered, right?

Andrea nods but looks as convinced as ever, arched eyebrows reaching for the sky. Brian, still tensed, gets to his feet and holds out the backpack by Jay's bed. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and starts stuffing clothes into it unceremoniously; they're only going to crumple on the road anyway. He lifts the notepaper from the sheets, but not before Andrea spies the scrawl that covers it.

“Have you been writing, like I said?”

“Um...” She can't see it yet. _Will I ever want people to see it_? Possibly not. But certainly not like this. Not with the terrible child's drawing in the corner and the disconnected notes – who knows what conclusions she might draw from those?

Brian reaches for the paper – _oh, so you can read_ – and Jay slams his hand down on it. Not before Brian's lifted a corner. The paper tears. Brian has the doodle, and he's looking at it with a tilted head, but at least the written part is saved. Not that Brian in a china shop gives a shit. He places and straightens the paper next to the other half in an 'oops, my bad' kind of way and goes back to glaring.

Jay has some forms to sign, and his word count on those far exceeds his supposed creative writing project. The letters might as well be hieroglyphics, alien patterns on the paper that rustles between his clumsy fingers. Nobody says anything about money. Talk of it is notable by virtue of its absence. If he's been here a week, it's already been taken care of, then. _A parting gift_. His stomach bubbles, the faintest resurgence of weak tomato rising in his throat like mould in water.

“If that's everything, what do you say we go for coffee?” Brian gets to his feet to make for the door, racing to get out of the loony bin. Like he's one to talk. How many hours must it have taken to put that stop-motion doll in place, to edit all those reels of nonsense together? How many things have to be wrong with you for any of it to feel like a logical course of action?

“Be in touch, Jay,” says Andrea, “and I hope to see you on Monday.” Why she's taking such a special interest in him and looking at him with shining eyes – or is that just her glasses? - is anyone's guess. Maybe she feels particularly sorry for him. Maybe he's 'cute' again, unlikely as it is in his current shape. Reedy stubble scratches at his chin. He runs his hand over his jaw as they leave, Andrea's heels clicking smartly in one direction and Brian lumbering along in another. He looks about him and returns his arms to wrap around his chest. Maybe he knows he has a place here. _I'm mad, you're mad, we're all mad here_.

“The canteen's that way,” Jay says, croaking.

“I know. But we're going for decent coffee.”

_Strangers_ . They're going to be out in public. _Fuck, fuck, fuck_ . Brian's on about some cafe down the street. They're leaving the glass of the hospital behind, for walls people can hide behind and places he can be looked at. _I'm not ready for this. Not even slightly_. What is he thinking? The walk alone is going to be exhausting, and then sitting there in front of all those people with the gauze on his wrists and his bird-like limbs extending from his soup-swollen stomach...

He could always book it in the other direction. But where to? Aside from Tim's house he could find his way to a doctor's office, an antiques store, and a park he'll never set foot in again. And even if he could scrape up some money for a hotel the process of searching and signing in takes energy that simply isn't there, in his sapling limbs already trembling from standing up so long.

The three witches have seen him today, probably mocking the sad fuck who can't even keep a whole bowl of soup down, so at least he's spared another encounter. And if everyone in the cafe stares at him at least he won't have to see them again. He's gotten through worse. He looks down to his feet, taking it one dusty paving slab at a time. _Keep putting one foot in front of the other. You'll get where you need to go_.

Natural light pours onto the pavement, hot and blinding after weeks within air-conditioned white walls. He's stumbling to keep up with Brian, who's strutting in that peacock way he does. At least the lines of trees they're walking under offer some respite from the sun's stare. Cars pass every so often - what must passers-by think their relationship is? He could be Brian's whining kid trailing after him, but his lost eyes mark him more like a pet of some sort. Nobody would think they were brothers – Brian's the American dream appearance-wise, while Jay is closer to Gollum in the family tree. What _is_ their relationship, exactly? They sort of knew each other in college, usually with Jay as the recipient of some prank and Brian clowning around, Jay too busy trying to think of something to say to to join in. He wasn't trustworthy back then, and now?

“Don't sit across from me. People will think we're dating,” he says as they take their seats in the coffee shop. It's small, with small dim windows, and too many nearby eyes on him as they choose a table.

“No-one's looking, dude. Do you want me to sit on your lap? Then they will.”

Jay wouldn't put it past him to actually try it, so he says nothing and takes a look at the menu. Above the top corner, Brian's looking around as if to find something to say, and coming up blank he starts humming along to the jangling guitars playing under the hubbub around them.

“Man, I haven't heard this one in years,” he says.

“Can I have your order?”

The waiter seems to materialise, blonde and greasy and not paid enough to ask with enthusiasm.

“Skinny latte, please,” says Brian.

“Uh, I'll have that, too.” Jay glances at the menu, but all the choices seem wrong, like Brian would wonder who he was trying to kid ordering hipster tea. As much as he's missed caffeine, the coffee's only going to burn his stomach and leave bitter residual taste down his throat. He's still swollen and sore from the soup. Something stronger would be better, just to lull him into a deep-breathing something like normality, but Brian would start up with the health risk litany again. And it's not likely to be on offer here anyway. It's all no smoking signs and checked tablecloths. Their waiter's shifting from one foot to the other and probably doesn't think they're dating – and as if Brian would look twice at him, even if he wanted him to. All around him are ruddy cheeks and smiles that make his own pallor all the more apparent. What if Tim was here? They sat together all the time before, and if they weren't exactly all over each other, they'd smile at each other or brush hands without thought.

Of course, it's all a moot point, now. He swallows.

“Where are we getting the money for this?”

“It's only coffee, Jay. Besides, I've been doing some lawn work around the neighbourhood. I've got it covered.”

The way Tim talks they're always one misplaced dollar away from starvation. Brian must be taking him out and spending money on him to try and smooth the news that he's single again. Like frothy milk is going to help anything. Brian's looking around, trying to find something to talk about in the twee animal paintings on the walls, and so gormless that Jay could almost reach out to pet his head. He bites his lip and keeps his head in the direction of a watercolour meadow on the opposite wall. If he's engrossed in art, it's an excuse not to talk. Of course Tim prefers having Brian around. Their friendship is simple, like he is.

And the song on the radio changes to breezy guitars swathed in strings, masking the melancholy of the singer's voice; _“Because it's not my home, it's their home, and I'm welcome no more”_.

“Why are you doing this?”

Brian drops the menu, the corner of which he's been tormenting and bending back and forth. “What am I doing? If I've done anything to offend you it wasn't – was it the sweatbands? I really didn't -”

“I mean, why are you sitting here with me?”

“Well, why wouldn't I?”

“Because you wish you had a whole lot else to do than look after Tim's sick boyfriend.”

Brian shifts in a magnanimous, you-do-have-a-point-there kind of way. “I did say that, didn't I? That wasn't fair to you. It's not you I'm mad at, honestly.”

“So if you didn't mean that, why are you here?”

He breathes out. “You're _surprised_ that someone is being nice to you?”

“Everyone wants something. And it's usually selfish.”

“If I ordered the shrimp salad, would you think I was being shellfish? Okay, never mind. This conversation's kind of heavy for early afternoon coffee, don't you think? No? Okay, well, I guess I'm trying to do the right thing, and picking the selfish option that hurts people the least.”

“So you can congratulate yourself on being such a good Samaritan.”

He sighs and scans the menu again. “Think that if you want, Jay.”

“Like when you made friends with the weird new kid?”

The menu snaps shut. “Actually, I'm Tim's friend because I enjoy his company and because, hard as this is for me to say right now, he's not a complete idiot. And speaking of things I want, I want to see my best friend happy again, and helping you seems like one way of making that happen. And believe it or not I actually care about you, too, though God knows you give me little enough reason.”

He's raised his voice ever so slightly by the end. _Fuck you_. Brian has no right to be mad at him, not when he's waited on Tim's generosity just as much and talked down to everyone all the time. But playing along with him and accepting his oh-so-generous offers seems the best way of getting out of here and under a blanket where he can't be touched.

“Where is he?”

“He's on a break from work. He's driven out of state and he says – Jesus fucking Christ, I can't even believe I'm...” He tails off into laughter, pinching the bridge of his nose. “He said he wanted to see the sea. I'm sorry, Jay. He thinks he's on some great journey to find himself or something. But he'll be back for work.”

Jay's nodding. It's nothing he didn't already know. Tim's too busy working to come and see him, his boss is a slave-driver, he's too tired afterwards, he wants to give both of them some space... _yeah, right_. He's gone to see the sea. They were going to do it together, but Jay's next two weeks would be better spent scouting apartments.

He could – and should – get in touch with his parents. They'd smile at the sight of him. His old room would still be there, with his battered first computer and the peeling _X-Files_ poster and the trees outside the window. But the trees would whisper to him and peer in to watch him, and he couldn't tell anyone, because they'd see him for what he really is. A freak. A lonely, broken freak who only ever makes problems for himself. A familiar flutter of breathlessness tightens his torso, stirring up the soup.

“He'll be back in a couple weeks. And until then if there's anything you need just ask me, okay?”

_I need to get out. I need Tim. I need a drink_.  Or at least a quiet minute to watch the pigeons again and smile.  And well-meaning as he might think he is, Brian can't give him any of that. A tiny mound of salt has heaped on the tablecloth before him, and he prods it with a little finger.

“Look, Jay, I know this is hard for you.”

It's barely worth looking up from the copper-coloured coffee cup marks on the tablecloth for this.

“I can tell you don't really trust me and I can't say I blame you, and believe me, if there's anyone who doesn't trust me it's me. But... we've been sharing space for a while now, and we do sort of know each other, even if I guess neither of us has made as much effort as we could've.”

_Please, just stop talking_. The way he's going on, it's so final, like a negotiation, and it's doing nothing for the nausea swarming just below the line of the table.

“Tim... he's been working a lot, it's getting to him -”

_I can't wear sweatbands to a job interview_.

“But... you're looking really well, and...”

_Yeah, right_ . He's still a toothpick wearing a tent. He looked good enough once for Tim to push him against a wall and kiss him, slow and deep, while he bent his knees to be the shorter person. And vodka-laced fragments from the other week jut out at unfortunate angles and scratch him, the damp panting in his ear, pushed down into a strange mattress. He shivers. _I want to say Tim was the last person to have me_.

“Give it a couple of weeks and we'll all smooth things over.”

_I've fucked everything up_.

It's just noise to him, these words that express the rents ripping inside Jay for weeks, the same as playing a soothing song in the background while a heavy metal riff is locked in his head. Jay draws in breath, but it's too late. A couple of tears are falling down his face. He lets out a sob just to ease the tension in his neck, and the floodgate is open. He's breaking in two but there's no suitable location for it, faces everywhere and he claps both hands to his mouth trying to stuff it back in, but all that's left is a whimpering noise from his nose.

The whine twists into a laugh. After weeks wrapped in gauze, sanitised, afraid to feel, it hits him like a power surge and knocks the breath right out of him. _I should never have kissed him back_. He should've known they were hopped up on sleepless nights and relentless looks over shoulders. Maybe Tim marched away like he did the morning they woke up together in the forest, like he should've done the morning some time later, when they woke up together in bed. He has the right of it, getting out, but such a cowardly way of doing it. _I'd have kissed him goodbye and wished him all the best_. Jay laughs, a bitter little eruption he stifles with a cough. Before he'd have been... if not happy, then at least content with a life of free time to waste on the internet alone. But now someone's made his heart beat faster just by existing, a life without the embrace of words with no need to be spoken yawns ahead of him. So they're both on an open road. And for Jay, running away from Jay isn't an option – he tried and all he has to show for it is these sweatbands too small to cover the damage. He has to fix this, somehow. But what can he do? Jessica's long wild hair fans on the ground in a circle around her head. Alex falls to his knees in the flooding basement, before the last gunshot. Jay slams his eyes shut, but the motion serves only to play his fuck-ups in glorious Technicolor undaunted by the cosy scene around him.

“Jay, hey, listen. I don't think this mean what you're thinking it means. He just wants a little time to himself to, I don't know...”

Brian touches his fingers to his arm. A hand reaches for him, from above, at the end of the longest black-clad limb and everything's dark and he's on fire inside and this is it, it's over, he's -

He's on his feet, jerking backwards like voltage is running through him and there's someone behind him ready to spring, they're on him, and he screams and there's china breaking. Jay forces his eyes open. A puddle of tan-coloured foam is pooling on the floor, running between the tiles. Two broken mugs and a tray spent beside it. The waiter alternates between the brown mess on the floor and the human mess before him with a sneer. He walks away with his hand raised, and Brian's muttering something about paying for it all, but all remaining is the faces turned to this ugly little wreck of a man standing in the middle of more broken shit, snot running down his cheeks, and he can't _breathe_.

He's sinking down on his knees and gagging. The awful soup is on its way back up, lumps of regurgitated plant life levitating along his gullet, wilting inside of him and rising with an added spice of bile. He's choking to keep it down, _please not here_.

It spills before he has time to stop, bile in his mouth and nose causing another gag, and another. Strings of sick are hanging from his mouth as he retches and he can't bring himself to spit, not here, but he can't move his hand to wipe it because he's shaking and he'll fall face down into it and it's on the floor and _everyone can see_.

Through the frosted glass of his tears Brian's on his feet and stuffing what must be notes into a waiter's hand, with muffled words in between; _“just out of hospital”, “so sorry about this”, “better get him home”_. Home. Sure, fine, whatever. He'll go back to the house with the same tense shoulders, the same desperate wish to just turn invisible. _You thought you should feel ashamed? Well, boom, there it is_. He blows with no effect at one string of orange saliva. There's a roaring in his ears as the blood pounds, drowning out all other sound.

Except for one voice, soft and lilting, at the other end of an extended hand.

“Jay? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I'm not going to touch you again, I promise, but if you need some help getting up then I'm here.”

_Fuck you_. Jay can get up perfectly well by himself. Except his limbs have turned to jelly, even his fingers wobbling as he tries to push off the ground. With the worst of his nausea subsiding he shakes his sweaty hair to reveal Brian standing over him, haloed by the lamp behind his head.

The radio keeps on playing, undaunted. _“There is a light and it never goes out, oh, there is a light and it never goes out”_.

“Come on. Let's go home and get you some clean clothes.”

The upturned palm extended to him is calloused, but it's got to be warm. Warmer than this unrelenting tile he's trying to cling to. Everything in him screams not to, but with all the strength he has in his right arm propping him up, Jay reaches out and takes it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Here's Jay's pigeons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q8lcPACNoI), for context and possible inexplicable amusement. And [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-cD4oLk_D0) is the song playing over the radio in the cafe, which is bound to incite strong emotion t the best of times.


	17. Reverb

_If we say that there is something above the mountains_  
 _If we say that there is something we can see_  
 _Promise you will never believe me_  
 _'Cause I guess I'm just trying to make it easy_  
 _And you couldn't catch them, you couldn't be there_  
 _You couldn't help them at all_  
 _And it was cold_  
\- The Knife

_Brian can't breathe. He struggles up the steps two at a time, a weight in his chest equal to the weight in his arms, gasping for air. His eyes are red and raw, his throat strains, and under his hood his face is hot and itching. He throws himself against the door until the ache under his lungs subsides._

_Inside, the light's still on in the living room._ Alex is still there. _Good. Gloved fingers clumsy, he breathes steadily through his nose and slips one hand around the door handle. He turns, fraction by fraction. There's a click of the catch falling into place - the game's up. Or is it? There's no disturbance from elsewhere in the house._

 _The wooden floors are old and groaning with age beneath his feet. He slips off his sneakers, tossing them in the porch to keep the wet dog smell courtesy of a walk through the rain away from him, and moves. He places one foot in front of the other, rolling from the balls of his feet to the heel ahead of treacherous creaks. Not necessary – Alex has music on, something with a lot of jagged guitars and a British-twanged vocal and what might have been a melody before someone used the sheet music for chopping amphetamines._ Not my cup of tea. _His heart stops when he sees the door's open a crack. He slips into the shadows under the kitchen cabinets and waits. And waits. Careful not to cross the path of the lamp illuminating a still and steadfast Alex, he leans forward and places one hand on the door. He waits, again, for a couple of breaths. Then springs._

 _Alex screams. He drops his joint and there's a second of scrabbling to find it again before he sets the couch sets ablaze. Brian's on his knees on the floor laughing._ How did that happen?

“ _You bastard!” Under his floppy fringe Alex is fighting tears of mirth. He took off his pants at some point while Brian was out, too, so he's sprawled on the couch in boxers and T-shirt for some band with a name in an unreadable font Brian doesn't recognise._

“ _Your eyes are so red, man.”_

“ _Like you're one to talk.” Alex helps him up onto the couch and they sit leaning toward one another, almost touching foreheads. A red on black readout from the digital clock sits in front of him; 11:30. He stares until the red blurs into two circles, and blinks as the time flips to 11:33. A calendar of arty photographs hangs above the clock, telling him 2/6/2006. And Alex is shuffling down beside him. “I am absolutely astonished you didn't get busted.”_

_Always one to heed good advice, Brian waggles his fingers in the air until Alex passes him the joint. “I had my hood up. I'm smart.” He presses the paper to his lips and inhales deep as he can, until the smoke clouds his eyes with tears, and then until his eyelids are too heavy to hold up. The room is lit warmly in dim orange by a terracotta lamp in the corner, and after his hungry trail through rain-lashed side streets, walking in envelops him in the closeness of a secret haven or grotto. Alex has piles of notes in his uneven, childish hand ,gathering coffee cup rings like a fucking tree, piled up around the laptop. Nobody has access to these but the cast and crew – and he's in with them. Brian's reflected in the screen, a monochrome print of himself, grinning and ruffling his hair in a fittingly movie star way. “So how's the script coming along?”_

_Alex's laptop is open on the table before them. Brian ought to read the latest updates, but the text might as well be in binary with the way his eyes keep drifting off to all the interesting things in the corners of the room – camera equipment, stacks of DVDs with foreign names, a crumbling Kubrick poster, some old sneakers trailing worn laces like snakes._

“ _Getting there,” says Alex. “I'm working on the jungle gym scene now.”_

_Brian empties the contents of the carrier bag onto the seat beside him. All the wrappers are so colourful, so shiny, he almost forgets what Alex is saying. “Why are we on a jungle gym again?”_

_Alex sighs. “It's symbolic, okay? Brian's come back to this place he knew when he was a child to find it's too small for him, and the height of the bars represents -” Alex looks away from the lofty heights of genius he's staring into to notice Brian making one of their takeout burger cartons flap like a mouth. “You're just a pretty face. Don't trouble yourself with it.”_

“ _I'm not taking that kind of shit from a man who wears stripes with plaid,” says Brian, before the full realisation that Alex is wearing_ stripes with plaid _hits him and he falls in a giggling pile on the floor._

“ _Are you quite done?” says Alex, pulling him back up._

_Brian helps himself to a mouthful of chips, nodding. “So what are we doing on the jungle gym? I can know that, right?”_

“ _It's going to be the 'four balls on the edge of a cliff' discussion I was telling you about.”_

_Brian splutters. “You're as hi -” and from there he dissolves._

_Alex looks at him, deadpan. “Are you trying to tell me I'm as high as four balls on the edge of a cliff?”_

_Brian nods, tears streaming from his eyes, and falls flat on his stomach like a well-walked dog. But if Alex says the scene has greater depth, then it must, because he knows more about these things._

“ _I do have one thing that might be helpful, though.”_

_Alex raises his eyebrows, like he's bracing himself. “What?”_

“ _Well, I think I know someone who can do the music.”_

“ _If this is a joke and you're going to turn up one day with a wind-up monkey with a cymbal again -”_

“ _No, no, it's legit. Remember Tim, who I brought to the audition last week?” Of course he does. They were the only two who turned up, despite Alex's insistence about all the tapes he had to go through. Brian blinks to clear the smoke from his eyes, but a thick stream is billowing from Alex's drawn-out exhalation. He coughs, and cycles through what he's about to say. It's testy ground. He's pretty sure Tim didn't tell him everything, but he heard enough about his windowless hospital room to understand where the invisible walls around him came from. “Well, he's one of those really infuriating people who can pretty much pick up an instrument and start playing it, so I was going to ask him.”_

“ _Which one's Tim again? It's hard to remember when you're so determined to befriend the entire campus.”_

_There's no hope for Alex's acting, but arguing won't help anyone. “The one you said looks like Bryan Ferry.”_

“Oh! _Yeah, I know who you mean.” Alex squints at him like he's trying to see through the dope smoke, but there's something more distant about it. “Between you and me I think the role's his. I was even thinking of expanding the character – think he'll be okay with it? I like the way the two of you look together. Light and dark.”_

_Brian snorts. “You make it sound like we're dating.”_

“ _No, that's Jay getting all flustered over him.”_

“ _What? Jay and Tim?”_

“ _I can't speak for Tim, but you know how Jay is when he gets a crush. Didn't you notice him tripping over all his words the other night?”_

“ _Not any more than usual. I just thought he was still embarrassed about us getting him to believe a haggis is a real animal.”_

_Alex blows out smoke in puffs, choking on laughter. “Native only to Scotland.”_

“ _Normally no-one falls for it until you tell them it's where sporrans come from.”_

 _Jay, though. He's just a quiet kid who blushes too easily and acts like he has a crush on everyone he meets. Tim hasn't expressed the slightest in anyone – not even Sarah when she walked out in the green shorts and everyone's camera trailed after her. Chances are no-one was exactly lining up to date him in the hospital. But yes, he might be up for a bigger role. He's already taking notes from his 'cooler, more aloof'_ Marble Hornets _alter-ego – sunglasses with him everywhere he goes, headphones blasting some band Brian's never heard of into his brain, dismissing Sarah with the quirk of an eyebrow when she asked to touch the new sideburns he's so proud of, walking with a little swagger where he'd have hunched in on himself not so long ago. Brian's beaming like a pushy parent on sports day just thinking about it._

“ _Uh, yeah. I'll ask him about acting a larger role.” Tim will probably shuffle from one foot to the other and look at the ground like it's going to say no for him, but Brian can talk him round. He doesn't seem to get that if he just stopped analysing every word he's about to say he'd get on fine with everyone. Brian would never be like that. People are nothing to be afraid of._

_The film will be good for all of them. Maybe Jay and Tim can become awkward friends and he can persuade Alex to give him a kissing scene with Sarah, if Seth and his obviously appreciative camera angles don't get there first. Something's really starting here. They're all going to be different afterwards._

“ _So what kind of character is he going to be playing?”_

“ _A quiet type, I'm thinking. Maybe he's a writer or something.”_

_At some point Brian's slipped down to the point where he's lying on the couch. He grapples with his limbs, which don't feel quite connected to the rest of him, to sit and look at the screen._

“ _'With all the love in the world, Alex Kralie' – who's this for? I'm guessing it's not part of your script.”_

“ _Wouldn't you like to know?”_

“ _You can tell me.”_

“ _Because you're so well-known for keeping secrets. She's no-one you've met.” He looks up from the screen, and the underlighting makes him look haggard and weary as he stares into the distance. “Her name's Amy. I... knew her back home. I thought I could leave her behind along with the rest of that town, but – hang on, I need to get this down.” He takes the laptop and starts tapping away._

“ _Is that where the story came from? You thinking of heading back once you're done here.”_

“ _My hometown? It doesn't deserve the name. It would take something out of this world to drag me back there.” He stops and sighs. “But there's her.”_

“ _Didn't realise you were that soft,” says Brian, smirking._

“ _I'm not as tough as you think.” He turns away, smoothing one of the cushions beside him. Brian reaches out to touch his arm, but the words of assurance which sounded so fitting in his mind fall dead on his tongue, like he's trying to deliver a bad script._

“ _So that would make you -” and Brian brings up the next words in bouts, stammering through his own hilarity, “Alex Frailie!”_

_Alex sighs. “Don't start that again.”_

_Brian takes another drag to top up his euphoria. “It must be hard, though. If you only have letters going back and forth.”_

“ _I do what I have to.”_

“ _So does that make you... Alex Mailie?”_

_Under the crushing weight of Alex's disdainful stare Brian crumples on the floor, melting into a puddle of hysterics at his own dazzling wit. Alex closes the laptop and stubs out the blunt, the only light in the room a fork of lightning outside, cracking in time with the thunder._

Thunder _. A downpour soaks fabric into flesh on his face._ Rosswood, Ext., Night. _Light and water hurl themselves from the black sky, splicing the shot he is taking from the lens behind his red first-eyes. Storm is here. It lights the wind-ripped trees and illuminates the pelting rain in flashes. And he waits, with the thunder echoing through the tunnel to his right._

 _He changes the shot with a turn of his head. The Ark sits in the centre of the frame. Not so much light at the end of the tunnel - more that the arcing stone lies in a shade of black darker, like a hole cut out of the night._ Night. _How long has he waited here?_

 _A scuffle. He changes the shot again, running to the bushes at the side. The end of the tunnel is in the bottom-right._ Rule of thirds _. Silhouetted against the opening at the other end, the liar comes forth with the thief draped across his arms._

_Something like a memory. A house nestled between green fields with a still lake like a mirror on the ground. A hand that is not his, pink and warm, reaches up to lift a photograph from a marble mantel just above his head. He moves slowly, so as not to upset all the other trinkets in a line upon it. Smaller than now. The hand is soft and unlined. Some years ago. The photograph was taken some years before that. The two in it, the man with the woman in his arms, are familiar. Important somehow. The man looks like the face under his face._

_He drops the frame, and a crack shoots across the glass, and he gasps._

_Not him. The body vessel._ Pay it no mind. _The liar and the thief are walking across the frame._ Last chance. _They're some distance from where they need to be, but no matter._

 _He catches the tan fabric of his first-face on branches as his feet slip and slide, treacherous beneath him. The rain has turned the ground to sludge._ Rain. _The fabric is stuck to his skin, like ties impeding his limbs – more than worn muscle already does. The body vessel had been strong, once, scaling walls and running further and faster than anyone else. Not for a purpose. Only aesthetics of muscle. Waste of resources. Wearing down now. A diet of plastic and chemical – all he can find. But no matter. The tired flesh shan't be needed much longer._

_Ahead, the liar is bent double coughing, even with the bleeding body of the thief of knowledge hanging around his neck. The liar swallows. The last of the medicine to dispel his other long enough to do what needs to be done. The same tickle is creeping through the throat of the body vessel and racking it with convulsions from the chest. On his hands and knees in the mud, tasting blood rising with the strain._

Medicine. _So they call it, the chemical compound to make the other go away._ Poison. _The other's first-face floats into his mind, black on white, and he is struck with... Not hunger. Not fatigue; body vessel is no more exhausted than usual. Not pain, at least not bodily hurt._

So what?

_It is the same feeling that visited on one of the times the one who'd kept the body vessel before came back to visit. Calling for his mother and stumbling into the woods to find something he knew from the before time. Never for long. Never hard to suppress by pulling up the hood and hiding his flesh face to tell the truth._

_Is this what the liar would feel for the thief should he not have made it? The twinge in his stomach grows even worse – though it ought not._ Do not feel, only think. _No matter either way. What had to happen happened. From the beginning, nothing more than pieces, each one of them. Dispensable. That it should be the thief to fall is cruel. Perhaps. He only ever wanted to help. But then. Nobody ever asked him to. He stole knowledge and this is penance._

I can help or I can kill.

_He tried. Moth, flame. Always needed more knowledge. Now he'll know peace, at least, with luck._

I can not help.

 _Can fragility – feeling - be trusted if it carries self-sacrifice at the core_?

Still human. Still no.

_But this sense of stretching in his stomach at thought of the liar's other. Weakness and nothing more. Other is gone, but so will all of them be, soon. He can almost taste the sweet oblivion waiting on the other side of the quadrant, where he will empty and be nothing more._

Null. Nothing. Do they crave it, too?

_He falls._

Scene change. _He slips on mud one moment and the next, he opens his real eyes to a dark room._ Benedict Hall, Int., … Night? _Parameters emerge, barely, from a light shining from the ceiling. Stone, underground. Echoes of water and feet. His lungs convulse again. Someone nears. Voiceless._

_It is not the liar. He can hear his voice some way off, shouting for the thief. No. The one who advances walks at a measured pace, one footfall after another, the music of fate and malign intent. There is no hesitation, no joy, no apprehension. Nothing there._

Distorted.

 _The broken one turns a corner. Light shines on his first-face –_ glasses _. He wears them to help him see what he can already touch and hear, but his thoughts and knowledge are shrouded in fog nonetheless. He scrambles behind an overturned table and watches in the little light he has. A flashlight beam._ Fire. _He senses burning, not by smell or sight but by_ knowing. _The end is close. This began with the broken one, back when he was whole, and only he can finish it._

_The others made their choices and never walked away. This broken man has no choice. Just like him. No-one told him where this compulsion to gather props and cut on the computer comes from. But it's imperative, to bring them all here, to take them all through._

The Ark.

_From the light sweeping the room he can see the marks on the floor. A circle quartered. The lines extend to where he's crouched with his knees wet and fighting not to breathe. He's walked into the trap, and it will be here soon._

_More footsteps – staccato, stumbling. The broken one kills the light, plunging them all into darkness. A scuffle from the other side of the room. Then another light advances, gradually widening, shaking every which way. The liar emerges._ Liar. _The word has lost all value._

_A cobweb drifts in front of his face. The spiders were his friends above ground, but what would drive them here? He can feel only wool, but the way it catches intermittent glimmers from the flashlight frames the shot perfectly. The thief is lying on the ground. He's breathing. Unforeseen. Not that his frail body will last long._

_The liar is shouting._ Nonsense. _It holds no more meaning than the baying of lost dogs. Two syllables. Two beats. Put it in capital letters, white on black. Alex. Alex._

Distorted.

_He remembers now._

Benediction. Noun. To ask for help or guidance from a deity. _Benedict Hall. This is it._ Yes _. All of them here. Who are they praying to? The broken one is easy. And all he himself wants is the stillness of the other side. The other two? Not so easy. Perhaps a thief wants something to call his own. The liar wants the truth for once._

_Not that it matters. Here they are at the end of all things._

_The liar is in tracking shot, walking back and forth and sweeping the flashlight around. He returns every so often to the fading body near the entrance. The broken one has made not a sound._ Silence.

 _The scene before him is turning to a melee. “Alex!”_ _Melee._ Alex Melee... Alex Mailie... _And unbidden laughter stirs in his chest, no more decision put into it than as breathing._ Why? _Something the other recalls, no doubt._

_Looking back through years of tapes and lies and secrets to wonder what juncture could have been taken to make things turn out differently._

Not relevant.

 _The shot comes back into focus. The liar is facing the door he came through and a shadow stirs behind him. The shape of a dog's head advancing towards him._ Hounded. _The crouching form of the broken one advances behind his shadow._

Too late _._

_The liar has been lying with his whole body._

_The light is hurled across the room, landing dangerously close to him. He kicks it away and huddles into himself. Letting his lens adjust, the song of violence tells him nothing. Meaningless vowels dripping with hatred. A soft wet smack of skin on skin. A crunch of breaking bone. Bruises you can hear._

_The liar cries out._

_The broken one screams._

Bang.

… _and Brian wakes up._

_The dream's over, he's back in his room. Isn't he? His knees are still steeped in water and there's a choking rank smell in the air._

What was I dreaming? _Only disconnected images – thunder, rain, a tunnel framed by trees – and thoughts – liar, broken, thief – suggests themselves, and Alex's face burning at the front of it._

_That's his voice now. But like he's never heard it before. Mewling “No'”like a wounded animal, growling from the back of his throat. He was here with Alex, traipsing through the burned-out building. The room around him echoes cavernous and subterranean, all heavy footfalls and and dripping water. This could be part of the same complex. But why...?_

_There was nothing in the script like this. A shooting in a basement. That was a gunshot effect, right? So... why are they down here?_

_How did he manage to fall asleep on set?_

_What the hell day is it, anyway?_

_And why are his eyes itching?_

_Brian raises his hands to his face and there's nothing but the feel of wool on wool. He rips the gloves off his hands –_ gloves? In June? _\- and pulls down the hood that's covering his head._ Jesus... _Has he been taken hostage or something? There's strands of cobweb or something fluttering into his face, tickling his nose until a sneeze builds. He bats them away, but they fall straight into place again. Scraping strands back from his head tugs on his scalp – he grabs fistfuls of something greasy, pulls, and it's coming out of his head. His hair is lank and falling below his shoulders – how in hell? And what's with the bitter reek of sweat rising off his clothes?_

 _He shields his eyes –_ real eyes – _and tries to look around. He's in a basement of some kind, where the walls are peeling and there's a persistent dripping coming from a corner he can't quite see. The others in the room are silhouetted against the wall in unnaturally long form, limbs twisting like tentacles and faces too dark against the glare of the flashlight._

_That must be Alex crouched on the floor now. He's clutching his leg, and splayed out next to him is a man of middling height, not moving... Tim? Has he been seizing? No. The figure on the ground isn't stocky enough. Jay? Yes, Jay – his cap sits beside him at a jaunty angle. But he didn't come out here with them. How much time has he lost? A day or so? His face is still itching from the wool, and in scratching, he does his best to shield his eyes from the flashlight beam boring into them._

_Or is it lamplight and he's still coming round from a dream? No. The damp beneath him is real. The coughing fit that rises in his chest is real, prickling like nettles in his throat and forcing his lungs into jerky action._

_Brian only has a second to make out Alex's face contorted in feigned agony before he's knocked to the ground by a glancing blow from behind. Definitely real. Before he can cover his face, his hands are seized and pulled behind his back. He could stammer something about taking method acting a little too far, but a boot on the back of his throat silences him. His hood is pulled down and he's turned over roughly to lie on his back. The flashlight is straight in his eyes, blinding him, until it's pulled back to show in sharp relief the face of his captor._

_Tim. His jaw dropping and one arm around himself like he's the one been punched, backing away._

“ _Not you!”_

_He's doubled over with some kind of shock, then with a coughing fit. He's falling to his knees and clutching his sides. The same fever has taken Alex, mutating his moans into hacked sobs. And now it's rising up in Brian, arching his back over the damp floor. He hacks up his chest until there's blood in his throat, throwing his limbs around to get on his side to spit it out._

_The coughing is real._

_Tim hit him for real._

_So the gunshot..._

_And the blood on the wall..._

_Fragments of dream are coming back to him._ Who are the liars? _A purpose; obscured to him now, but something's been cut away from his mind. There was a home in the woods – not even a home, just some wood stuck together to keep off the worst of the rain. Trees. Hatred red behind his eyes. First-eyes?_

_Alex coughs and cries._

_Jay twitches, emitting the smallest of exhalations._

_There was another gunshot, one he heard echoing through empty corridors as he sneaked around corners and hid behind doors. The uneven floors beneath his feet, the snatches of sunlight he ducked out of – it's all real._

_Tim looks haggard and desperate like he's never seen him before._

_Alex is scruffy and beaten and black-eyed, like in the dream._

_The dream that wasn't a dream._

_Under the fabric covering him he's thinner. Bones bruising against the stone at his back. His muscles have wasted, fatiguing just from his small movement on the floor. His chest heaves, his throat burns, and just for water and air and light and -_

_And the tall figure emerging over them. Searing pain rips through his skull and he struggles against all odds to his feet._

Where's the gun?

 _The only sound is coughing, four sets of lungs rejecting the poisoned air that's forced into them, mingling in a cacophony like a swarm of cicadas that mirrors the static on those tapes._ The tapes _. They must be real, too._

Seven years.

 _He juts out his chin as much as possible to look down – he's wearing the tan-coloured hoodie and he's seized with a crawling over his skin, and it has to come off, ripped away like it's on fire. Alex is the only one on his feet, though he's leaning heavily on his left leg. The right must have been where the bullet hit._ Why am I even thinking this? _Wasn't it just the other day they were sat in his apartment laughing over Jay and the haggis thing? Why is Jay convulsing on the ground?_

It can't be real.

_The ties on his hand pinch his flesh. The acrid underground smell is choking, mixed with blood and sweat and panic. Tim is on his knees and scrabbling around – what for? Brian's seen him like that before, when he couldn't remember where he put his medicine._

Medicine. Did I take it? _His own gloved hand reached for the little orange bottle, the ridges on the cap would press into his fingers when he opened a stubborn one without fabric covering, but_ why? _And he... took some? His head is full of pixelated vision and noise and_ pain. _Thoughts scramble together and run away._

_One thing cuts through clear enough. Tim's got the gun._

_Brian's on his knees like he's facing execution. Which, if half of what he might have dreamed or might be remembering is true, he could very well be. Tim's right to be angry, in that case, and defend himself. But it wasn't_ him, _it was something else moving his limbs and he wants to shout some combination of nostalgic words to make him see. But he can't stop coughing – just until the tickle in his throat dissipates, then he'll speak._

_From what he can see through his eyes half-closed, Tim's forgotten him for now. He's stood with the gun hand lowered and facing off with Alex. They're roughly equal height with Alex incapacitated. It's hard to tell what's going on without a clear picture, but someone's ready to spring._

What the hell? _He's sat here guessing which of his friends is going to kill the other. This can't be happening. But it's all too real, and all the while Jay is drawing increasingly ragged breaths, and won't they drop this and tend to him? But Alex... no. Alex is only one step from turning the gun on him, too, though he seems forgotten in the corner for now. Brian prays the shadows over him and the ties holding him in place will buy him some time to... what, exactly? Where can he go from here?_

_Maybe he can break himself out. He's done it once, on a survival course at the far end of high school. So he knocks his fists against the backs of his thighs. There's a stab of pain and the same constriction around his hands. The force his muscles should be holding just isn't there. His arms fold uselessly back into place. He squirms, but lets himself lie low after a while. The hooded top itches his skin raw, from more than just the rough fibre._

_Alex is trying to choke out something between coughs. The thing in the suit still hovers over them all – Brian here in the corner under the piping, Jay stretched out adjacent, and Tim and Alex forming north and south points. With still limbs and featureless face it's too calm and white, watching as they tear their throats out._

They're my friends. _And he's waiting to see who kills the other first._

“ _Two bullets,” says Alex at last. He might as well be reading from an instruction manual for all the feeling he imbues it with._

“ _All I need,” says Tim, just as curt. It's almost comical, really. They're terrible actors and the whole thing sounds like a blank reading of a script. Tim's timing was off, Alex always used to say. There must be something in it, if it's all come to this._

 _He shakes his head. Shouldn't he be doing something right now? At least for Jay, quiet little Jay he's always wanted to help with girls or work or books that were too heavy for him._ Did he really...? _Jay_ , Jay _, who could barely look you in the eye, he really ended up carrying a knife and charging that suited thing?_

_They're arranged in a quadrant before the figure who summoned them. One too caring to quit. One too proud. A liar whose secrets got the better of him. And then there's Brian who just had to be in charge. All horses fallen on the first hurdle and flailing._

_All looking at the gun._

_Is Alex laughing? “If you had any sense you'd turn it on yourself.”_

“ _I stopped listening to my own head when it tries to tell me that. You really think I'm going to listen to you?”_

_What's he waiting for? He's aiming the gun but his hand is shaking this way and that. Is it fear of wasting a bullet that stays his hand and nothing more? Something has to happen to get them away from here – his throat is in tatters and the walls are blurring. They're waiting on Tim's courage and Jay's growing stiller – is he bleeding? Something's pooling on the ground. But Brian's front is growing damper and looking down, the whole floor's filing with water while they stand around pontificating like comic book villains._

But they're not villains. They're my friends.

_Come on, Tim, there's no time._

I'm taking sides in this? _His friends are pointing firearms at each other and all he can do is commentate. Commentate and try to keep his head above the water lapping up to his chin._ Where the hell is it coming from? _Instinctively he has some idea that it's down to the suited man in front of them. It's rising unnaturally fast in such a wide space. He rolls onto his back and waves his legs to flip up onto his feet, but it's no use without his hands. His muscles aren't what they were before –_ seven years ago – _and all he succeeds in doing is wetting the back of his head._

Two bullets. All I need. _Pretty ominous connotations for Brian. Maybe he should keep out of the way until he can compose himself._

_Tim drops the gun and plunges to the ground after it, water up to his wrists. It's only then he seems to notice the sudden deluge and he pulls Jay into a rough sitting position slumped against his leg – which is still shaking as he raises the gun again._

_Alex makes no move to take the weapon._

_He remembers something else remembering Alex dragging his body away, Alex threatening him and shouting in his face, Alex tied to a chair in a blur of horror. And there's Tim hesitating and petting Jay instead of... doing something._

But... Alex. We were making our film just yesterday...

_Now the haggard man is shouting. “What exactly do you think is going to happen to you that's worth sticking around for?”_

_Tim says nothing and squares himself - he's readying for the kick. Jay yelps, then the breath seems to die in him._

“ _Are you trying to save yourself for_ him?” _He throws his head in Jay's direction. “You think you're going to run away into the sunset together?”_

Why is he talking about Tim and Jay like they're dating?

“ _I've lived like this for years now and I can tell you what's waiting for you. You're always going to be running. From one job to another because you can't sleep for nightmares and they fire you, one town to another when you think you've seen something that shouldn't be there.”_

“ _Shut up!”_

“ _It's no kind of life. It's just existence.” Alex's injured leg gives out and he falls to the ground. “Go on, then.”_

_This isn't Alex's dialogue. His writing is cluttered with too many words of two or three syllables more than needed. Their exchanges are as blunt and cutting as the bullets in that gun._

_Tim wavers. “What the hell kind of stunt is -”_

“ _One of us goes or we all go! I can't stay brave forever! Fucking do it!”_

_Alex was always a terrible actor. It's safe to say he did his old scripts justice. So the pain tearing his voice is real. It's not an act, and none of this is a set, and if any of this is being recorded it's only to go..._

_Where? There's a thought he can't quite grasp about tapes, videos – what? It's slipping away like a falling blanket, leaving him cold and too exposed. Water's lapping around the sides of his head. He throws himself up as much as he can to sit, but his torso just isn't strong enough. He falls back, and readies himself to try again, and -_

_And the gun fires._

_The shot seems to ricochet right through his cold body, tensing him even more in the cold water. On his back he can't see a thing, but there's shouting that sounds like both Alex and Tim, and splashing, and static noise is building in his ears until he can't_ think _-_

_He takes a deep breath, gathers his arms, and flips over onto his stomach. He's arching his neck to keep his head above the water – which is almost level with his nostrils, even at this angle. Blinking to keep his eyes clear, Tim and Alex both are scrabbling in the water. Jay's out of sight but there's choking, somewhere. The water's rising. Even on his back there'd be no way to keep himself above it._

_And Alex has the gun._

_Tim stumbles backward. He falls to the floor and takes Jay's still body into his arms, crouching over him. Alex lifts the gun... and points it to his own temple. Brian's body convulses with coughing and his head's underwater, breathing it in every time he tries to force in air to cough._ One of us goes or we all do. _It's too late for any of them, now. Perhaps that's not such a bad thing. How do you go about piecing together a life that's lost seven years? Does he have ID anymore? Money? Anyone to call a friend? It's a lot of effort waiting for him outside of here, if there even is an outside._

_The gun goes again._

_He can only see Tim's silhouette against the wall – Tim's silhouette and a spray of dark red._

_The buzzing in his ears rises to a crescendo. His chest tightens until it's about to pop. And then the thick atmosphere recedes._

_And Brian uses the space to scream._

_The water is over his head now, surging like a tide. He's one last lungful of air left. Is Tim going to help him? Not if the burning look in his eyes as he pulled off the hood was anything to go by. Is it so bad? His head has a hole in it – a phantom limb where he knows he should remember something. Knows it's something he doesn't want to remember. Perhaps this tired and wasted body is better off left here._

_The water before him swells and sinks with greater force, and he's roughly pulled from the tide into a shock of cold air. He finds his centre of gravity and sets himself on his feet, slipping in the mud underfoot. Tim still has a grip on the back of his hoodie. If only he'd just rip it off. Brian lets himself be guided to a chair nearby and Tim ties a shirt around his mouth._ Okay. _It's not like he can even remember much of how words work. He can see them typed, but something's missing in the connection from brain to tongue._

_Tim carries Jay like a bride out of the room and up what sounds like a staircase if his ascending footsteps are anything to go by. So is Brian left here to drown? The surge beneath his feet is calming, but he's no chance of getting out of here on his own. Maybe it's best to co-operate with Tim._

_All those things he used to say about his medical history_ – 'delusions', 'violent episodes'. _Brian only ever learned glimpses of it. This... could it be some kind of relapse? It must be. You don't just lose seven years and wake up to... Alex with a gun... and then..._

 _But he can_ feel _where he's older and tired out. Their faces are lined and now the water's receding the room is filling with the metallic tang of blood._

 _There are footfalls, hurried, coming towards him. Tim._ At least, I hope it's Tim. _Or, God knows, maybe there's someone else in this whatever it is and they'll cut him free and he can get some answers._

_A flashlight beam precedes Tim's return. The tension in his shoulders subsides for about a second, then he sees the expression on the other man's face. He's barrelling toward Brian and dragging him to his feet, pulling him over the broken floor to wherever he came from._

_They're getting out of this building. That's got to be good. Maybe Jay will be okay. Reasoning with Tim has to be the best option. They're_ friends. _Whatever Brian might have done that he didn't remember, surely Tim will understand? If he complies and tries not to struggle and shows he's not a threat..._

_They're marching through unseen rooms over broken ground – the echoes around him suggest a space wider than a thick cloak of darkness is letting on. He can just about make out his feet in front of him and avoid stumbling with the flashlight, but Tim's hands are unsteady and he ends up moving at a clumsy trot to keep pace._

_The whole place reeks of mould – recalling the time he was nine and they came home from a holiday walking in the Scottish Highlands to find Paul had left the door of the fridge open, green slime dripping out of it like something from a Goosebumps novel. There's the barest hint of a breeze up ahead, and Brian trips on uneven, worn stone as he scrambles up the stairs towards it. It's the air he moves faster for, not the gun barrel pressing lightly into his back._

_And there's light. Two white blocks growing wider as he nears them. Tim stops him and slides himself out under a large pipe overhead – careful to keep the gun aimed at all times. Brian glimpses his face and it's blank. There's only a cut to his forehead bleeding and the blinking of his reddened eyes to suggest life there at all._

_Brian slithers on his stomach into the open air, Tim pulling him and dragging him to his feet. He crouches behind the piping and looks around. The coast apparently clear, he stands close behind Brian and the gun's back, but closer this time. Close, but so open._ Air. _After all this time, fresh air blowing his face and ruffling his hair. The breeze coming unfiltered by wool and free of damp and cinders and mould is nothing short of heavenly._ I could die happy, like this, just breathing.

_But of course he doesn't. He's mocked as alive when he flinches at a shadow that looks like a man holding a gun – it's cast only by a statue, pointing the way out. They march over a blur of concrete and trimmed lawn, tripping over his own feet before they arrive at what must be Tim's car. Jay's spread out in the back and thank the Lord, he's still twitching. Not that Brian has much time to inspect his wounds before Tim opens the trunk and performs the least inviting 'get in' gesture imaginable. So Brian does. There isn't much else to do._

_Tim looks down at him with all the care and affection of a distant marble statue, and slams the door._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This is a haggis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis) \- apparently this fact is not as internationally known as I'd hoped, so good on me for being educational, I guess.


	18. Elegy

_The old fortune teller lies dead on the floor  
_ _Nobody needs fortunes told anymore  
_ _The trainer of insects is crouched on his knees  
_ _And frantically looking for runaway fleas  
_ _So let's all drink to the death of a clown  
_ _Won't someone help me to break up this crown?_  
\- The Kinks

The door slams and Brian's eyes are open. Not for long. The lamplight stings them shut again. He ticks off a quick inventory from behind his fingers – blue and yellow patterned sheets, white walls, all is as it should be. His red shirt hanging up on the door. The photo of Grace by the in its twee faux bronze frame, with the roses. They met at the party a few weeks back. It's all real, the mattress springs worse for wear beneath him and the wood of the bed frame rough against his fingers. It's quarter to four in the morning. He has nowhere to be tomorrow. Tim's not back yet.

So where did the door slam? Jay going to the bathroom, most likely – at this time in the morning? _Oh, wait. This is us we're talking about_. Brian sits up and stretches, an ache in the small of his back and his limbs turned to rubber, like he's been tensed in his sleep. Outside the door, the soft padding of Jay's footsteps leads out of the bathroom, the only place he goes other than the couch and the magical talking pictures flashing in front of him. There's some milk and cheese disappearing from the fridge between Brian's visits, but the one time he found Jay with a bag of chips, he stuffed them under the blanket and locked his jaw mid-chew, like he'd been caught with something he shouldn't have.

Residual visions of basements glimpsed through a woollen hood are stuck in his eyes. He brushes them away with the sleep crust and swings his legs over the side of the bed. He's covered in a sticky film of cooling sweat and dehydration tickles the back of his throat, enough that jumping into a lake seems like a great idea right about now.

Along the hall, the only light is a pale bluish glow flickering on and off along the walls from the TV, accompanied by a slew of British-accented expletives. He walks forward, feet flat on the ground to keep quiet, and the blankets spilling over the edge of the couch shift. Jay's awake. This past week he's settled for pretending Brian doesn't exist, exchanging nothing more than pleasantries and turning his head from any additional questions about his wellbeing – but it's still a step up from the death stares Brian was on the receiving end of before.

He's cocooned in blankets and staring at the screen - awake, but not really there. Which is why Brian, tip-toeing past to the fridge, almost staggers backward over the bookshelf when he opens his mouth.

“Heard you shouting. You okay?”

_Wait... whoa, yes, Jay is speaking to me of his own volition in sentences intended for me as an individual_. Ones that would have required some interest in him and his mood to be formulated in the first place. _The hell?_ He pours himself a glass of juice from the nearest open carton, and leans against the partition.

“It was just a bad dream. Must've shaken me a bit.” He takes a sip from his glass. Pineapple.

“Do you want to talk about it?” His voice is one step away from Microsoft Sam and sounds like he's mocking the very idea of talking out your problems. He hasn't lifted his eyes from the screen, on which a teary red-haired woman is addressing the camera.

Brian stands still. “I don't want to bother you.” With blankets pressed up to his mouth Jay looks about as inviting as a bag of snakes, but there's a lot of darkness between Brian and his room at the other end of the house, and his blood is racing too much to let him sleep again. Enough to precipitate another nightmare, perhaps. Staying up to cool down is a better plan.

“It's your house,” says Jay, shrugging. “I'm not really doing much. I couldn't sleep so I'm watching Gordon Ramsay yell at people.”

The scene before them is calm enough, a few tracking shots of an empty kitchen. Before long a group of meek-looking white-clad wannabes are lined up and being marshalled. Brian's eyes wander. On the table, between the fruit bowl and the TV remote, rests a white envelope with his name on it in loopy purple handwriting. In the top corner is a stamped logo for the Bottlenose Bar – a dolphin with a beer bottle stuck on its snout, wrapped up in a magnificent pun. They wrote to him personally. _That's a good sign, right?_ But then, they're the kind of small employer who'd take that time even for unsuccessful applicants – a category anyone with years unaccounted for and rings around their eyes like a junkie is likely to fall into. The letter came this morning and hasn't moved from the table since.

An upturned frying pan strikes the ground. Brian jolts, shreds of pineapple catching the back of his throat. Stoves sizzle and something's gone wrong. There's a dramatic sweep of synthesised strings signalling the shouting spree everyone tunes in for. Brian clears his throat and leans against the counter, putting the half-empty glass down beside him. “I've never seen any of his shows. I don't think I was... here when he first got big.”

Jay responds with only a sniffle. _Oh, great. You had to go and mention our past_. Even alluding to what happened was a stupid idea. Now he's set Jay off on some depressive trip when he's been doing so well since he got home, at least by comparison – showering, eating a little, mustering a “Morning” as Brian walks past the couch every day. He's pulled the blanket up around his mouth but it's a useless mask for shaking shoulders and shining eyes.

_What do I do?_ If it was Tim in tears right next to him he'd put an arm around him, but it's not. The evidence of Jay's appreciative response to the last time anyone tried to comfort him is still crusted on the bedroom carpet and lying in pieces on the floor around them.

“Jay? What's wrong? If I said something -”

“It's nothing.” He waves his hands, and Brian looks closer. There's a mantle of tears on the edge of his eyes, but is he... laughing?

Whether through infection or the weight lifting from his chest, Brian's joining in, his chest heaving in spasms until he's giggling too. “What's so funny?”

Jay's staring at the craggy blonde man laying into a taller, darker guy, asking in exotic terms how it's possible to mess up a green salad. The offending plate goes flying and the bigger man crumples, about to cry. “Does he remind you of anyone?”

It takes Brian a moment to verify that yes, Jay really is addressing him. He steps closer, shoving away from the partition with nothing at his back. “Who do you mean?”

“Well, who's the only person we both know? Someone who's a ridiculous drama queen?”

_Oh_. “You mean, someone who blows everything completely out of proportion and doesn't know how to let it go?”

“And storms off the moment the going gets tough?”

Their eyes meet for the first time and they snap back to the screen, where Chef Ramsay is still foaming at the mouth, and laugh some more. Brian lets his shoulders drop and, woozy from standing still so long, falls into the armchair next to him. With the half-light on his face, Brian can't help but notice that Jay has the cutest damn smile. _As a heterosexual man and comfortable with myself, I am able to say that_. Laughter takes a whole five years off his face an replaces it with colour, and comes with the added value always attached to something rare. If Tim found a way to engender it on a regular basis, maybe it's not such a surprise things lasted as long as they did.

What would he think if he saw them now? The five days running where they wouldn't stop laughing at Brian over the thing with the toothpaste has been, so far, the only time the death stares and half-finished half-truths stopped long enough for the three of them to act in any way resembling on ordinary group of friends. The man on the screen is pacing in just the way Tim does – if only he was here now, protesting all accusations of similarity. The house is empty without the smell of cigarette smoke.

“He doesn't have the culinary ability to match, though,” says Jay at length.

“You're telling me. When we were in college and he lived next to me I had to lending him my pans after he tried to boil cheese.”

Jay snorts, and leans forward to help himself to a handful of peanuts from the bowl on the coffee table. “Did he get mad about it and say something like 'Well, nobody was exactly lining up to teach me how to do cheese sauce in the mental hospital'?”

“That's more or less exactly it! I swear, anything he gets wrong or anything he doesn't understand, it's somehow the fault of the mental hospital.”

Jay frowns, and stammers into speech. “I don't think it's an excuse so much as... like, he had to keep all of that hidden for so long. And if he talks about it a lot around us I think it's kind of... just because he _can_. I think it might be kind of liberating, you know? Not having to make excuses because he doesn't know things that we do.” Jay covers his mouth as soon as he's done speaking, and wraps his arms up underneath the blankets.

“You know, I've never really thought of it like that before. He's not without his faults, that's for sure,” says Brian. Jay toys frantically with the folds. He's never been much more than quiet Jay, no middle ground between hunching over on himself and lying splayed on the floor in booze haze. How much is he locking up behind the tense shoulders? Is this the person Tim sees all the time? Brian sighs. “Still love him, though.”

Jay nods, his eyes glazing over. “I never said he was.”

_But you don't know how much I needed to hear that from you_.

“He'll be back soon.”

“Sure. But not for me.”

“Look, you're going to feel lonely and lost if you just keep sitting around here all day. Why don't you use this time by yourself to maybe go through some papers, look for a job? I know it's kind of scary at first, but -” _But what, exactly?_ Jay's interest in whatever's happening in someone else's kitchen nightmare has intensified, to the point where he's not blinking and his eyes are looking wet again. “I could help you.”

“I don't need any help.”

_Careful now_. The thin ice cracks under his feet as he opens his mouth again. The wrong words could spell the end of their being civil to one another, but if he doesn't use this uneasy peace to help, what's the use of it? “Are you sure? You don't seem to be doing a whole lot on your own. And you've got to.”

“I'm perfectly aware.”

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained, you know?”

“Haven't I proved anything to you about trying to help? All you do is make things worse. I ventured quite a lot before and look where that got me.” He lifts his hands for emphasis and the silver screen light catches the jagged lines cut across his wrists.

The letter lies unopened on the table, glaring white in the light from the TV. Everything Brian went through – putting his resume together, chasing up every lead he could, ironing that shirt time and again and driving himself to distraction rehearsing conversations he couldn't plan – and all it's going to amount to is yet another “We're sorry, but”.

“I can't help you if you won't tell me what you need.”

Jay rolls his eyes.

“You're impossible, do you know that? People try to help you and -”

“You're not even listening to me.” Jay huffs, and the blanket's back over his mouth.

Brian sighs. “Because we've heard it all before at this point.”

“Well, I'm sorry I'm not inventive enough for you.”

“Oh, stop _stalling!_ And quit acting like you have the monopoly on being dealt a shitty hand by life!” Everything he's suppressed for weeks is spilling out with the grace of a three-legged dog and there's nothing he can do. He's leaning forward and throwing his hands out and Chef Ramsay is shouting 'It's fucking raw!' in the background, like punctuation. “Do you know what it's like to just wake up one day and you can't do any of the things you love? I had one thing, _one thing_ that I wanted to do more than anything else and I lost my chance. I didn't do anything wrong! I didn't do anything to deserve this! It's okay for you, you just get to hate yourself for not doing enough, but I worked so fucking hard and it won't happen. And now I can't even talk to people.”

Brian's not sure at what exact point he stopped speaking to Jay and began shouting at himself. He coughs and presses his lips together before anything else can fall out. He retreats to the counter and picks up his glass. The place is silent save for incongruous, upbeat piano music. He leans over for the remote, brushing the letter with the back of his hand, and switches it off, plunging them into deeper shadow.

_Great_. Slowing the fall of his chest with a deep breath, he sinks into an armchair. “That was uncalled for. I'm sorry, Jay.”

“Don't be.”

“No, I am. Don't beat yourself up thinking you deserve me taking it out on you.”

“Taking out what?”

“Fucking... all this. What our lives have become.”

Jay nods, but he's looking to the other corner of the room, as though acknowledging part of another conversation only he can hear. “Keep speaking your mind, though. This is the first time I've heard you talk since we got here where you haven't sounded like you're reading from a script you hate.”

“And I guess we both know what that sounds like,” says Brian, and they both laugh again, but it's softer and sadder this time. He blinks away freeze frames from his dream and takes a sip of juice. “You know, Jay, if I sound that way it's probably because I have to run through everything I'm going to say to you so I don't end up upsetting you. You haven't exactly made yourself easy to talk to.”

“I don't find it easy to talk.”

“That's two of us, now.” He sighs. “I had a date the other night, you know? And on the surface everything went really well, but Ren and I -”

“Who's Ren?”

“This woman Tim works with, she's super smart and beautiful and -” Brian says, and immediately his tongue lies there like an unnecessary thing that should be bitten out, because he's _said the wrong thing_. Right on queue, Jay's posture stiffens.

“He never said anything about -”

_Oh, for God's sake_. “He never said anything because he knew you'd take it like that. Oh, wait, actually? He probably never said anything because he never noticed her, because he's completely besotted with you. And do I really need to remind you that you're not in any position to talk about infidelity?”

Jay doesn't lash out or burst into tears. He nods. “I'm sorry things didn't work out for you.”

“There'll be more dates,” Brian says, looking over the lined and beaten skin of his hands, no wedding ring, no-one to hold onto.

“Maybe we can go double dating next time.”

“Jay... he's coming back.”

“ _Not for me_. Not that I blame him. Don't pretend to look sad. It's what you wanted him to do, isn't it?”

“After what I've seen, can you blame me? He doesn't call you all this week, you destroyed the house -”

“I was drunk!”

“And you shouldn't get drunk if it makes you think smashing up the living room is a logical response to anything. But that's not all. Why can't you guys just talk to each other instead of avoiding a problem until it blows up like this?”

“Some of us aren't so good at it.”

“Okay, well... say, that day he broke down and told you all about what happened when he was a kid. I know we don't talk about what was in those videos but maybe that's a bad idea too. He's sat crying on the floor, and all you can do is stand there and film it? I'm not trying to guilt you here. He's in the wrong, too. I just want to understand.”

“What else was I meant to do? He didn't seem like he wanted to be touched and I couldn't think what to say. What would you have said? 'I'm sorry I brought all this on you, and I'm sorry that I'm incidentally the last person you have you could even begin to talk to, but if it's any consolation, you look really hot in red and I also think I just fell in love with you based on what you're saying'?”

His voice sinks to a reverent whisper by the end. And Brian can only rub his hands. Tim crumpled on the broken floor with no-one offering so much as a grip on his shoulder. _I should have been there_. “Really? Right then?”

“He's such a brave person. And yeah, I _did_ tell him that, just not 'til later.” Jay makes a clucking sound, swallowing a sob. “And I'm not strong, not like him. What could I have said to be useful?”

The whole time, speaking in stop-start fragments, mumbling and trailing off - not beause they had nothing to say to one another, but _too much_? Never a problem for a motormouth like Brian. “Maybe sometimes no words are better than the wrong words. I don't know. This is stuff you guys need to work on and I'm keeping my nose out.”

“But maybe it's like you said that time. He doesn't love me. He just pity-fucked me because it took his mind off everything else and now he keeps trying to help me so he doesn't have to feel like he suffered for nothing.”

Brian raises a hand to place on a knee under the blanket, only this is Jay, so he balls it and rests his chin upon it instead. “Don't pay attention to anything I said when I was angry. You understand him in ways I never will. It's not my place to say what you should do. Just know that I'm here for both of you if you need anything.”

Jay scoffs.

“How about we do as I suggested and clear up before he gets home, yeah? And get you something to work towards.”

Jay breathes one of those stop-polluting-the-air-around-me sighs.

“I thought you said everybody wants something?”

“Everybody does. Everybody wants something and no-one gets what they want.”

“What about your writing? Don't you want to do something with that.”

“Nobody's reading it. It's for me.”

“I'm sure it's good.”

“Don't try to lie.” Jay looks him head on. “Did I ever tell you your acting was the equal of Alex's script?”

The words knock Brian's breath from him. Winded, like he's been punched. Jay just sits with spidery hands folding the fabric on top of him like nothing's changed. What other little gems has he been hiding under his hat all this time? The comment was a _snipe_. He sits and watches to learn where your weak points are, and then he aims, fires. Not that he could know what he's doing, what he's broken – has Jay ever had a real passion in life? All Brian's work, all the training, line-learning, endless hours in the gym to look the part – and all for nothing. He never even had chance to look at a decent script.

Brian clenches his fists. He's never going to see his name in lights. Brian's known this for a while, since that date and his poor performance, but the weight of the rest of his life is growing. What is there to do instead? He's not smart. He's not even strong anymore. It's too late to use his facial structure to get by. Tim comes in every day from his real job with bloodshot eyes and barely enough strength to keep them open. The bar work that waits inside that letter looked like something, sure, but forever? And with people doing what he wants to do just along the street?

But there's Jay sitting there with a trembling lip, clutching thin blankets like they're all he has in the world. Brian takes a deep breath, and he smiles. “That was a terrible script.” He gets to his feet and pads across the floor, rinsing his glass before filling it with water. “Want one?”

“Ah, sure.”

Brian places one tumbler in front of Jay. He shrugs off as much blanket as he needs to free his arms and picks up the glass with both hands, taking dainty sips and staring at the floor. Nursing it like Brian's seen him nurse a shot glass – though not this week, thank God. As soon as he found out he was to act as impromptu nurse he did some reading on alcoholism and the astonishing resourcefulness that goes into maintaining it. He's been locking the door at night and behind him when he leaves to buy groceries, and making sure any loose change is kept in his pocket and out of harm's way. Jay watches TV and Brian checks the internet on his phone, a sponge for information to make up for the time he lost. It's good news for Jay's liver, and yet there's something troubling in the way he sits and stares all day. Like he doesn't even have enough enthusiasm left to self-destruct any more.

“I dreamed about Alex,” Brian says. “When I was shouting, before. I don't really want to think about it, but if it'll help you to trust me, then there it is.”

Jay puts down his glass. Even from here his hands shake visibly – almost as much as Brian's own.

“I see him all the time,” Jay whispers, voice croaky, like his very throat is trying to force the words back down.

“With... the gun at you?”

Jay shakes his head. “No. At the end, when he...”

He's crying for real now; _oh, fuck_. “Look, Jay, I didn't mean to upset you again. I'm sorry I brought it up, I just thought, I don't even know. I wasn't thinking. We'll drop it and -”

“No! No, damn it! He was my friend and he deserves better than people talking around him all the time!”

Jay's huddled back into the blankets, drawn tighter about him like he's bracing himself for a storm. Two twin tear tracks course down his face, fighting the tremor of his lip in spite of everything, and maybe this is as close as he'll get to seeing the person Tim sees. “My God, Jay. That you can say that, after everything he did to you.”

“He didn't. Or at least, he didn't want to. Maybe it was that _thing_ messing with him, like it did with me. Or maybe he just did what he thought he had to, and, God, I _saw his face_... do you know what it's like to fight so hard to survive you end up with nothing left to live for? Because I do.”

“Jay...”

He's sat like a wrapped up handle with care parcel and all Brian wants to do is throw his arms around him, but this is Jay, so he wraps them around himself instead.

“He was always smarter than me. I think, by the end, he knew what was waiting for him if he went on living.”

Brian scans the room – the marks on Jay's wrists, the mess spread across the floor, the rejection letter lying in wait for him. “I know its hard to see it, but you've got plenty left to live for. Do you have any idea what a strong person it makes you to be able to forgive him like that?”

“There's nothing to forgive. It's my fault all this started again and...” his words mangle and break off into sobs.

“If he'd just burned those fucking tapes instead of letting his stupid ego get in the way none of this would've happened! Just keep hanging in there. I'm sure as hell not spending the rest of my life in a hole like this, and you can be damn sure I'm not leaving you two behind, either.”

Another choked cry racks the room. Jay's dabbing all over his face with the blanket, powerless to stop his pouring nose and eyes. “I don't want my life. That's all I can think about.”

“Just keep going. I know it feels -”

“I saw his face! He wanted to live so badly at the end, but he _couldn't._ Why was it him? Why him and not me? All I've ever been is a person people feel sorry for.” Jay sniffles. “I'm sorry if I was unfair to you.”

“It's okay, Jay. Like I said, I don't even trust myself half the time.”

“I just don't like being told to move on and forget about the past. I want to remember that he was good, once.” And he chips off a laugh, even now. “Just not as a screenwriter.”

“Stuck in a loop of unhappiness,” they say in unison.

“I miss him so much.”

“Do you remember his German Expressionist phase?” Brian laughs.

“Everything in this film is _intentional_ ,” says Jay in his best impersonation of Alex's sarcastic deadpan.

“I remember on his MySpace page he used to set some really pretentious abstract noise song to autoplay. It always used to crash my computer. And when I told him he said he was – and this is a direct quote – 'force-feeding the mainstream with substance'”.

“Sounds about right.” Jay sighs. “I couldn't talk to Tim about this. He never really knew Alex back then. But you remember the good stuff too, right? Like how encouraging he was?”

“Actually he always seemed determined to take me down a peg or two.” Brian, strong, blonde Brian; he told Alex to be grateful he was hanging out with him instead of beating him up, Alex told him he was lucky his pretty head stayed on his shoulders rather than floating away from all the air in it. He pauses to laugh. “Looking back I needed it. I can see where he'd try to be different with you though.”

“I only really took the film class to stay with him. He was the first friend I kept for more than a year or so.” He wipes his nose on the back of his hand. “Most people I've known, I think they hung around with me thinking I was going to come out of my shell one day, or something. But they cleared off when they found out I was just kind of boring and stupid.”

“You shouldn't say those things about yourself.”

“That's what Alex would say, as well. But it's true. I never get anything right and I never know what I'm doing and can you _blame_ me for feeling like this?”

“Well, if you're so fucking stupid, how come you're right all the time?”

“What?”

“Answer that. If you're so stupid, how do you know for sure that you're stupid?”

“That doesn't even make any sense.”

“Exactly. But, you know, maybe other people can see things that you can't.”

“Or they're seeing things that aren't there. I'd know. But that's what I was saying. About Alex. I think he did look for the best in people and maybe he didn't have it in him to believe I was worth giving up on. Maybe he had so many ideas of his own it didn't matter that I was just sort of hovering there all the time.”

Brian lifts one hand to Jay's shoulder – slow, deliberate, like petting a dog bigger than him. Resting his fingers there meets with no resistance, so he grips a little, but only a little. There's entirely too much bone in his handful. “Look, even if – and I don't think it will, I'm just putting this out there – our living situation changes, you can still talk to me, if you want to. It's not like we're going to have many people who'll understand, and you're right that Alex shouldn't be forgotten.”

Jay sniffles. “We never even had a body to bury. I never got to say goodbye.”

Alex Kralie lay face down in a pool of red water for a minute or so before his body vanished. A lot of things regarding the law were easier that way, but if they'd had a funeral, something to tell his parents, a gathering around the fireside to share stories, maybe they wouldn't have had this ghost in their home. You don't get better closure than a funeral. But they've done nothing. And Jay's right. He shouldn't be forgotten. Brian takes his glass from the table. “Well, let's do it now, then. To Alex.”

Jay smiles weakly and chinks his glass against Brian's. “To Alex, and moving on.”

“Forgiven, but not forgotten.”

They sit back. Quiet descends and demands something good to break it, but the TV would be too loud. Outside, a bird begins its first song of the day and the sky has grown lighter without notice.

Jay coughs. “You think we're really done with this?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean. The... _Operator_. When the thing left with Alex's body, and you turned back into yourself, is that really it?”

Brian exhales. “I'm not even going to pretend like I understand how all of this works, and you guys had more experience with it than I did.”

“I had this idea... maybe it kind of fed off negativity. That always seemed to draw it out, when one of us was scared or sad or injured somehow. And did you notice how it always kind of brought out the worst in people?”

“I honestly try not to think about it too much.”

“But look! It made me trust people even less, it made Alex even more self-centered, Tim more aggressive, and you kind of got even more controlling than you used to be.”

“Hey!”

“I'm not saying it's a bad thing – like, when I saw you with Tim, back then. You only wanted to help him learn and get some confidence. It just turned out badly when that thing messed with you.”

Torn between telling him he's smarter than he thinks and shaking at the very thought of a business suit, Brian sits still and watches Jay talk with his unsteady hands. Answers – all he ever wanted. And in piecing things together he's more animated than Brian's ever seen him.

“So maybe by the end, if Alex thought he had nothing left to live for, that's why it had to be him to put an end to it. It took somebody with no hope to, I don't know, kind of satiate it, I guess. I just can't stand thinking of him like that.”

A slideshow of Alexes starts behind his eyes; stripes with plaid, walking around with his hands in a viewfinder, buying everyone drinks after a shoot. “Well, that's how strong the three of us are. We all found reasons to keep going.”

“I didn't. And I'm not. But I think I'm going to try. I saw his face, at the last, when he had the gun turned – he looked at me. And he wasn't angry anymore. I think, even if he couldn't bring himself to say it, he did it for us. He saw what he'd done and wanted to put things right.”

“Okay. He died so we could live. Let's try and focus on that.”

“But I _hate_ him for it. He... he shot himself so I could live and... What the hell is wrong with me?” Jay has curled into a ball, gripping the fabric around him like he's trying to strangle himself. It's there in the shakes, the marks on his wrists, the wreck of their home. Unspoken words ring in the silence; _And I hate myself for hating him_. Jay sniffs. “But at least he was himself, at the end. I don't want to let him down. I don't want to be someone people feel sorry for anymore.”

“I think that's a very good thing to aim for, and I hope you can feel proud of yourself some time.” The night turns light blue – it's been a long one, and Brian's all out of words. “I think I'm going back to bed. Will you be okay?”

“No less okay than I would be while you're here.”

Brian heads back towards the corridor, until a loud buzzing turns him around. Static noise, like glitches, it must be - _don't be ridiculous_. It's Jay's phone, neglected on the table in front of them.

“At this time of night?”

Jay snatches the phone, which flies out of his shaking hand. He leans over to pick it up, breathing audibly. “There's only one person who has this number. He doesn't sleep so well.”

Brian sweeps back to the couch – it can only be Tim. After a week of missed calls replied to with quick texts saying “Talk later”, he's leaning in just as much as Jay. “I won't look if you don't want me to.”

“No, it's okay, I just...”

Though it's not quite an invitation, Brian needs to know. He's given a side-on view of a photograph – decidedly amateur, with the centre framing all off and the objects within it all blurred. It's a grass bank at night, with a half-moon rising over... the sea? Tim must be stood there, by the edge.

His throat constricting, he swipes the phone from Jay's hand and pours over it to find... God knows. A road sign, a lighthouse, anything that could help him find Tim and get a police car to him in time before he – “I'm calling him now. Fuck this. I won't let him -”

Jay takes the phone back and flips it shut. “Relax. It's not what you're thinking.”

“Then what the hell is he doing?”

“There was a message with it. He said 'Is this what you were talking about? It's kind of lonely up here'.”

“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I don't really know, to be honest. But it's this thing we talked about one time, standing on the edge of a cliff and feeling it fall away beneath your feet. I don't know what he's trying to tell me, but it's not... that.”

“If you're absolutely sure. I'm still texting him.” Brian takes his own phone from the table and bashes out 'I know you're off finding yourself or whatever, but please go out of your way enough to reply so I know you haven't killed yourself. Jay's talking again, and eating, on the off-chance that you care. Regards, Brian'. “Avoidance issues you have to walk round, that one.”

“Are you going to open your letter, then?”

“Excuse me?”

“You've been staring at it all day.”

“I'm a little shaken right now. It can wait 'til morning.”

Jay lifts an eyebrow, then picks the envelope up off the table.

“Jay!”

“If you're not going to open it, I will.”

He leaps over the the couch and reaches for the paper in Jay's hand, though he's raised his arms over his head. “Give me that, you bitch!”

Jay's laughing as he throws off the blanket and jumps to his feet. The sound of tearing paper rips through the early, still air. Brian covers his ears; _we're sorry, but, we're sorry, but,_ until he can't stand it anymore. Another round of rooting through papers and websites, another day scraping the bottom of a barrel that never had much in it to begin with. What more can he do? He's tried charm, he's tried sincerity, he's tried shirt and tie -

“They want you.”

“ _What?_ ”

Jay lets the paper flutter to the ground, like a particularly half-hearted white flag. “The job's yours.”

 


	19. Fanfare

_I'll tell you one thing that I know  
_ _You don't face your demons down  
_ _You gotta grapple 'em, Jack, and pin 'em to the ground  
_ _The devil may care, maybe God even won't  
_ _You better make sure you check on the dos and the don'ts  
_ _And I hear punks talk of anarchy  
_ _I hear hobos on the railroads  
_ _I hear mutterings on the chain gangs  
_ _It was those men who built the roads  
_ _And if you put it all together, you didn't even once relent  
_ _You cast a long shadow, and that is your testament_  
\- Joe Strummer

Driving towards a large body of water is, beyond a doubt, one of Tim's better ideas. Such a great and well thought out idea, in fact, that his shaky hands have every chance of driving him straight past the long grass barricading the cliff edge and landing him _in_ the large body of water – and now, he's shaking even more. He blinks, and keeps his eyes on the lines marking the middle of the road – even, straight, and right in the centre.

He's never seen the sea, but he's been submerged over his head in cold river water and fought for life with his lungs constricting more and more with every passing second. The same roaring floods his ears and his chest tightens, even in the safe confines of an air conditioned car. He breathes on purpose, in through his nose and out through his mouth. The headlights will pick a path through the dunes, and he'll mind his footing, and he'll be able to say he's seen the sea. He should've stopped off home to pick up one of the instruments, just to round off the cliché.

But here he is. The car's light illuminates waving fronds of dune, and the white path drawn by the moon from the horizon can only be falling on the ocean. He turns off the road onto a lane littered with loose rocks barely wide enough for one car and he scans the road ahead for potholes, but the gleam of astral light on the water follows him. _It's beautiful_.

A clear night lit by the full moon; he couldn't have asked for more. The stars are shining even above all the lights on the dashboard. The radio's off, because Jay was in every song he heard, and he didn't think to bring his own better music. The only sound is the hum of the engine. He'd sit in the same ambience with Jay, flitting from one cheap hotel to its next twin, not a word passing between them. The quiet sets off the same pangs as his first night in a rented room, two weeks and a hundred years ago. The complimentary coffee they hand out doesn't change from place to place. He slept in a single bed with the room looming large and shadowed around him, reaching out next to him expecting a warm body and finding only empty, unconditioned air.

A fresh breeze blowing through the open window and lifts his lank hair. The salt tang blowing with it carries an ominous forewarning, however. He's getting closer. All that water heaving around him and dragging him down – _stop that_. Why could it not occur sooner that maybe, just maybe, running off alone and surrounding himself on all sides with his trauma wasn't such a smart move? He's spent too much time around normal people who don't have panic attacks over their own elongated shadows. The initial offset of his jaunt was surreal enough to counteract reservation, streets blurring until he forgot he was leaving town. The first time he slept in the back of the car he could only think of warm, freshly laundered blankets back home. Was Jay underneath one then, huddling into his own skinny form for an illusion of safety? He'd be home from hospital and no keener than Tim to sleep in the bedroom with the stained carpet. He should turn the car around and head straight to home to him. He promised poor Brian, who's never been at odds with his own head before, an ear, too. After every time Brian's let him cry on his shoulder, and running away is the best he can do?

But he sees the mess on the living room floor nobody's making a move to clean, and he sees the monotony of stacked shelves and off-white walls too blank to yield any answers, and that's why he's out here. He's already run away, the deed is done. He has to come back with something, _anything_. And what was it Brian's mom said? Hasn't he earned the right to do something for himself for once?

For one encounter he found himself in a dimly lit diner, plastic tables and yellowing tiles on the floor, reminiscent of the many he'd frequent with Jay at three in the morning. Although, much of the world looks similar at three in the morning when he's struggling to keep his eyes open. He was nursing a headache from driving too far without hydrating and staring into his coffee cup to see how long he could make the bitter mulch last before trying to sleep in the car.

At the table to his right sat a bunch of boys maybe ten years younger than him - still old enough to put him on the edge of his seat waiting for the “Hey!” kids of their age use to signal they've found the resident weirdo in the house. A clarifying sip of coffee tells him he's too old to be worrying about it, and there's absolutely nothing distinctive about a man of middling height sitting in a diner wearing dark colours.

All they talked about was their band. To look at them he could practically hear their demo tape, their slender frames in frayed skinny jeans and plaid shirts – three chords and lyrics about fighting the power. They all sipped the labour of Third World plantation workers in unison, while making remarks about the shapely proportions of their underpaid waitress.

“So then it could go, like 'The classroom's yours, but the future's mine',” announced one in a Rage Against the Machine T-shirt, immaculately washed and ironed.

He was met with unanimous grunts of approval and a Steve Albini lookalike on the end jotted it down. “What do we rhyme with that?”

“Undermine?” piped up another in a shirt as red as his acne, whose compulsive tapping on his knees marked him as the drummer. “And you could make it like a play on words, 'something something under mine'.”

Tim's facial muscles hadn't been so strained in the battle against laughter since Alex's script readings back in the day. He lifted his coffee by way of disguise. _Was I ever so naive?_ Unlikely. Mental patients don't get to be rock stars, and as for going against the grain, it kind of loses its glamour when you never had a say in the matter.

But every time someone made a suggestion there was cheering and drumming around the table, miming instruments and humming melodies. For Tim making music is about predictability, rhythm, a conveyor belt winding on until the problem seems smaller. The boys were talking about self-expression, which is closer to blue touch paper. _Do they have much of a self to express?_

“I can't wait to get out on the road,” said Red Shirt.

“Nothing to do all day but hang out at the pool before we go on stage at night.”

“Imagine living out of hotels. Imagine going the hole hog and trashing a room!”

Keeping himself to himself be damned – Tim's face was in his palm. _Yeah, you make the exploited cleaning staff go out of their way cleaning up after you, fuck the system_. Back in the day he winced leaving mud on the floors, and the creaking mattresses topped with Swiss cheese holes in the sheets seemed like the height of luxury next to sleeping in their cars. As for having an audience, it's not a duty he misses, but Jay? Perhaps it was the only time he felt someone cared, and the only way he knew how to communicate. It's hard to feel lonely when you're there for all the world to see.

Younger Brian and his brother were the same way once. Paul the accountant doesn't have the swagger to cut it, but neither does Brian. He was never destined for show business. _He's too fucking nice_. Living on the road, though... He's half a mind to stride over there and tell them it's not all it's cracked up to be. And he could laugh, given that he's not one to talk, driving all the way out here and spending money he doesn't have on thrift store clothes for the sake of smelling socially acceptable.

Maybe that's the lure. Hopping from place to place with someone else cleaning your room, it's easy to pretend nothing you do has a consequence.

What kind of consequence is waiting when he goes back to the real world? There's a long list of missed calls from Brian and one curt text telling him how Jay's just fine and how good of him to ask, then another one a couple days later telling him he'll have to come home if he wants any further news. _Jay_. Does he miss this, the knack of bypassing responsibility?

He crests the dunes with the barely broken voices of youthful exuberance in his head again. He leans back in the seat to watch the moon on the water. From here it's no different to watching it on a screen, with his face reflected in the glass.

The wind rocks the car. The edge is close. His heart skips. Water pouring into him while he tried to cough and expel whatever that thing was tickling him with. Blood splattering in his gullet. And the water that circled around his ankles as the college floor flooded, his feet numb and useless beneath him as he grappled in the mud for the gun.

He had to choose between Alex and Jay – stalking the empty halls watching every shadow or chasing into the tunnel for lack of any better ideas. Running back and forth, hammering on the walls until he slipped and cracked his head. Blood in his hair, and then a long arm reaching for him, dragging him away. He came to in an empty room, echoing like concrete but cold and damp, the unspoken weight of earth above him pressing down. They're all heaped on the ground like tattered rag dolls. Jessica with a hole where her heart should be, Sarah's sleek hair tangled and bloody, Seth sprawled on the ground with his limbs at unnatural angles. He's fighting tears again, crushing their bodies underfoot to get to the man in the cap on the other side. There's blood pooling under his steps, but maybe it's not too late and Tim throws a hand across his face to clear away tears and falls down beside him. Turns him over. Listens for faint breath. Presses his wrists and throat to find a pulse and it's there, intermittent, and he picks him up and runs back into the rain.

Tim has to slap himself to return to the clifftop. It's not the kind of thing that leaves you, grasping and swearing to find the smallest sign of life in a body you're used to caressing slow and soft.

The memory is burned in him never to leave, even though he hasn't so much as coughed since that day at the college. They'll never have answers, but if that's the price of peace, so be it. But there's one thing he'd like to know. _What made Alex different?_ Why was it him who had to go? Jay had an idea one night, when they'd put away too much caffeine trying to puzzle out the latest code. The thing, the... Operator, always in the picture when someone was afraid or injured. What if it was something like the pain of mind he carries with him, drawing life force from other people's misery? It would've had a five-course banquet out of Alex at the end, kneeling with a bullet in his leg and praying to the pistol god to put at end to him.

And in spite of everything – the shooting pain hitting his wounded leg every so often, the nightmares putting him back in the college building running for his life, the memory of watching Jay getting shot hitting his gut just as hard as the bullet – there's nothing but tears in his eyes, not the red he saw so often. Not so long ago Alex was a kid with no fashion sense and a long list of obscure bands for Tim to give a spin. And he ticked off every single one on the list, most of them still sitting on his hard drive, seeing him through bad days at work and lonely nights after.

He stands bathed in moonlight and offers a silent thank you to the ragged ghost with broken glasses who haunts the back of his mind. Tim lived to hear Brian laugh again because of Alex's giving. As bile rises up his throat to think they defeated the Operator through _the power of friendship_ or anything equally nauseating... that's maybe what it was. He pulls his jacket tighter about him and opens the door.

He spent a few days in the harbour town before driving out tonight. The air's colder than he expected so far south and tastes different – tinged with salt, smelling clean, full of the cries of gulls. Streets splinter off and double back on themselves, easy to get lost in. The plan at first was to stay one day, drive out to the cliffs in the evening, but there's always something he finds while the sun's up to divert him from the water waiting for him.

It's another travelogue of people and places he's enjoyed walking past. After dark, orange light spills into the streets to contrast the blue around him, and through the windows of all the bars there's more empty seats than there would be back home, but he always falters at the door. Earlier tonight, one man outside in a leather jacket spotted the cigarette in his mouth and waved him over to the doorstep where he was swathed in smoke, inviting him into the comradeship shared by those shunned from normal, healthy-lunged society. Tim smiled, but a grateful wave was all he could manage before his heart went up and he remembered there's no script for this.

Not long after he decided to be adventurous and found another diner to while away a few hours pretending to read a paper. The names on the pages battled and blurred into one.

“Who you planning on voting for, son?” said a gruff voice in his right ear.

 _Son?_ Tim tensed, waiting for a hand clapped on his slumped shoulder. _Have we met?_ _Isn't it, like, two years until the next one anyway?_ But everyone knows the type. They're pretty much walking ad campaigns and come into the store from time to time, mouthing off about the price of milk like Tim controls not just the store he works in but the cows themselves, and talking at length of how one well-paid suit or another will make everything worse.

Honesty was the best policy back in the diner. “Uh... not sure yet.”

“You done it before?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, why the hell not?”

 _Because it's kind of hard to care when there's no candidate delivering a decent policy on eldritch abominations and the rehabilitation of their victims into society?_ Not the answer he was looking for, and with the lines on his hands it's unlikely Tim could pass for too young to vote. “Just never got around to it, I guess.” He shrugged in a what-you-gonna-do sort of way.

“And this is why the country's in the goddamn mess it is,” he declared, Tim half-expecting him to whip out a flag and leap on the table. “Generation of apathetics, heads in their cameras the whole time.”

_And if you had even the faintest idea what you were saying..._

He turned to two daughters of an age not yet reaching double digits sat behind him and gazing up as they might at a Cyclops waking up with a hangover. Two empty beer glasses sat in front of them, too, telling him all he needed to know. “This is why I told you to stay in school. Get yourself an education or you'll end up like him over there,” he said, gesturing to the gangly waiter, who carried on regardless.

“More than happy to have him running round after you, though, aren't you?” Tim hissed before he had chance to stop himself. The guy was taller than him, but scrawny, and had it came to it Tim would've had a nice shot at his rounded gut. The girls clung together, probably fretted about which Ivy League college might have them when they should've been fighting over toys. All the days himself and Ren have had to fend off the anger of customers who are perturbed to find the staff require more specific instructions than “Where can I find the medium thing?”.

If only Ren had been there. She'd have all the terminology to take down the man with his middle-class start in life and his alabaster complexion and give him the verbal equivalent of a punch in the dick. And a literal one if things got personal. Tim being Tim, he said nothing, but he smiled. Like this guy would ever know hard work. Hard work is when something wrong with your brain means your every waking moment is consumed by desire for your current breath to be your last, and doing your underpaid, unrewarding job to make someone else's day easier anyway.

It's only as he gets out the car now to walk towards the edge that he smiles again – he was _actively desiring_ the company of a person who was neither Jay nor Brian.

The door squealed like a trapped animal as the family left, fading into the half-light raining down on the streets. A song came on the radio that hit him harder than the soft rock they'd been playing the whole time – hard to ignore, a shrill British woman singing over heavy drums. Basically what you'd hear if an audio dictionary was ever invented and you looked up 'the 1980s'. It's playing on the wind blowing through the open crack of the car window.

“ _I've always been a coward_

_And I don't know what's good for me”_

Brian close to tears on the floor the morning. Jay asleep on his bed. _Their_ bed _._

“ _I found a fox caught by dogs_

_And I take him in my house_

_His little heart, it beat so fast_

_And I'm ashamed of running away”_

Being diminutive at the best of times Tim had no chance of reaching up to switch off the overhead speaker, so he downed the last dregs of cold coffee and departed, cold air tightening his skin and forcing his hands to his pockets. He made his way back to the car, and now here he is.

His first stop-off, before he'd made his mind up to come to the sea, was a little red brick house with a sycamore tree whose branches brushed at one of the upstairs windows and a white picket fence flaking with age. The paintwork gleamed when he lived there, but then so did his teeth now stained by nicotine and his skin lined with scars.

At the hospital, he had a choice of what to eat and didn't watch his every step for creaking floorboards or feel the need to clear his throat before he spoke as warning, the way he did for the little time he spent here. But he didn't need to go back there, for all it's closer to home than this place would ever have been. For one reason or another he's seen more than enough of it over the years. Leaving the car to stand by the gate with roiling grey skies framing the scene, he stood with his hands in his pockets, waiting for something. _She_ wouldn't be there, and he knew it before he saw the For Sale sign creaking in the wind above him. He wouldn't know the first thing to say to her if she was. The windows stared back at him, black as the flat lands around him turned with the coming of night.

Its imprint lingers as he steps further into a stinging wind, though all around him is grass and moonlight and a black line across the horizon. He walks three steps closer to the edge and stops still, shutting his eyes.

They never went to the sea when he was little, though the more time he spent locked in a box room, the more he wanted a place with no walls and no boundaries and definitely no fucking trees. _What was it Jay said?_ He was standing on the edge of a crumbling cliff and unsure what he was waiting for. The ground under Tim's feet is sturdy enough, but it is dizzying to look out at the mass of water always moving of its own accord, bigger than they can imagine. He keeps himself rooted where he is and doesn't look away. The surging river rises around his ears and tightens his throat. Tim stands his ground, fists balling in his pockets.

His mother's voice carries on the wind; “There's nothing to be _scared_ of.” But there _was_ , and if there wasn't, she should've demonstrated why. She should've stayed with him until he knew that sometimes life is scary, but you don't have to take it on alone.

And his own words, with the same bite of better things to do; _there's nothing more to be scared of, Jay_.

“Just _try_ , won't you? For me?” When she grabbed his arm and pulled up his sleeve and saw the scratches. But Tim _was_ trying, so hard, only the voice in his head insisting he'd be better off dead - that admitting defeat would be the strong thing to do, rather than clinging needlessly to suffer some more - wouldn't stop. Not for a moment. It took every breath in his body for the little boy who wanted to see the sea and play a guitar to keep it at bay. Sometimes he had to let out a little of the hurt, just as libation, just so he wouldn't end up setting it all running at once.

 _Jay, you're not even trying_. When he didn't even have the strength to get up off the ground. With the same voice chanting at him, mocking him, finding a way to twist every little thing he did into a weapon against him.

And Tim and his mother chant it in unison; _“What the hell is wrong with you?”_

Tim lets himself be the little boy afraid of the tree outside his window again. He doesn't fight it, doesn't push out the thought with memories or music or some half-assed pep talk about moving forward. The wind here blows only half as cold as the draft in his hospital room, and he has more weight to carry around, but he's back scanning the room with frightened eyes and mad with not being believed. And the voices whispering disorders weren't half so bad as the one in his head with his mother's accent telling him he's useless, he's not worth the trouble, everyone would be better off without him, there'll never be a place for him. And he found Jay slumped on the drive outside the house, bleeding out, hating the world.

_Tell that little boy he's not trying. Tell him he's not good enough._

The familiar phrases conjure his mother's face – nothing like his own. He has whoever his father was to thank for that. She's blonde with a gleaming smile and kindly heart-shaped face which houses an acid tongue and a narrow mind. And yet, standing where she stood in the fancy heels she saved to buy and never had chance to wear out, the familiar burning in his stomach doesn't rise. She did as much as her mind would allow.

_But I'm not like that._

With any luck Jay's been assigned a decent doctor and have that impartial ear he needs to do a Pandora's Box with his emotions. Tim has no idea and he _should_ know, he should've been there to drive him home and he should've been there for Brian when he tried to open up. So he's had two weeks of not doing what he should and it's past time to go back. Those years dying inside? Maybe they don't have to be for nothing if he can be the friend to Jay he never had himself. _You never attempted, so what?_ That doesn't make Jay a weaker person.

He's quaking like he did in that room, like he did on his first day of college with all eyes on him, on his first working day when he messed up, every time he sat staring at a razor with every missed chance laid out before him and still found some reason to walk away. It's something to proud of.

But if his actions are exceptional, then by definition, they can't be _expected_.

The living together deal was set in one motel room or another, early evening. They day before they left for Alex's old house and everything went to hell. The room next door sounded like an abattoir, squeals and screams accompanied by thumps to the wall and the occasional low-pitched shout. The family therein wouldn't have cause for family-unfriendly complaint with them, though. After some calculation Tim guessed they'd walked about fifteen miles on the day, all for no purpose but to tire them out too much to... do anything. They undressed, showered, and slipped into bed to lie next to each other and watch the sun slip lower from the window.

Jay got up for a moment to charge his phone. He moved around the room with a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair still damp from the shower, and unable to tear his eyes away, Tim wondered what it might be like to throw on some half-decent coffee for them every morning. When Jay joined him in bed, unfurling next to him as he held out the covers, the meeting of their skin made his spine shiver. _Yeah. I think I could live like this for a while._

Another shout from next door pulled him from the far-fetched domestic reverie. He knocked softly on the wall. “You're killing all the romance in here.”

Jay laughed, and didn't have to lift his head very high to take in the panoramic vista of crumbling wallpaper and threadbare carpet, but moved himself closer anyway. “Why would anyone subject themselves to that voluntarily?”

“Beats me. I guess I didn't get the greatest example of parenting, though.”

“Your mother, she...?”

“She couldn't deal with whatever was wrong with me. I wasn't trying hard enough, apparently. I tried telling her it was worse for me than it was for her, but no.”

Jay squeezed him closer.

“It's okay, really,” he said quickly, stroking his hair. “People put too much emphasis on family when your DNA is the only thing you have in common. When all they do if make you feel like a burden.”

Jay ran a hand over his stomach and tilted his head to kiss his cheek. “I don't think you are. For whatever that's worth.”

_Did he have any idea just what it was worth?_

Jay took a couple of deep breaths in the way he always does to soothe himself before speaking. “I guess I had the opposite. My parents were too good, in a way. I left them and I didn't know how to handle not having everything I wanted.” He sighed, and shifted a little, so warm and soft. “Still miss them, though.”

Tim said nothing and leant over to find his cigarettes. He needed a prop for the question he was about to pose, and Jay provided the perfect segueway. _It's now or never_. “I was thinking, uh...”

“It's always good to try new things.”

“Shut up. When this is over, you could come stay at my house. Just if you have nowhere else to go. Until you found a new place of your own. If you wanted to.”

“I... I guess. It might take a while for me to find somewhere else, though.”

“I know. I wouldn't mind.”

“How long would it be okay for me to stay, though?”

“I'd never throw you out. You could stay with me as long as you wanted. Uh, as long as you needed, anyway. I have a guest room. I case you didnt want to... you know.”

“It's almost like you want me to, like, officially move in with you. Like partners or something.” He cleared his throat. “Joking. Although, well, I guess neither of us is going to do great career-wise now, so we could save some money living together, I guess – tell me to stop if, you know...”

“No, no. It's something to think about.” Jay flushed – Tim didn't need the light on to know it.

“Do you want me to? Live with you?”

“Well, if you'd like.”

“Only if you want me to.”

“Well, do you want to?”

Ad nauseum. Tim laughs and opens his eyes to the night – the sea is calm, the light of the moon a pathway leading to anywhere. By morning they had their answer, after Jay draped a leg over his waist and they fell asleep in a tangle, and Tim sees Jay smiling in the car as they set off, and he has his answer now, too.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The song on the radio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VerK4zwMRQw).


	20. Nocturne

_And they all pretend they're orphans, and their memory's like a train  
_ _You can see it getting smaller as it pulls away  
_ _And the things you can't remember tell the things you can't forget  
_ _That history puts a saint in every dream  
_ _So put a candle in the window and a kiss upon his lips  
_ _As the dish outside the window fills with rain  
_ _Just like a stranger with the weeds in your heart  
_ _Pay the fiddler off 'til I come back again_  
\- Tom Waits

Jay sits cross-legged on the bed, a blotch of pale red on the carpet and his legs turning numb underneath him. A draft's blowing in from somewhere to open the room wide and empty around him, but Brian has had the guitar out again and if he has to listen to the main riff from _Iron Man_ one more time today, he's going to cut his ears off. The phrase “I am Brian Man” rendered in an attempt at the cheesy vocal effect in the intro was the final straw, and here he is, staring at memories embedded in the walls.

There's headphones and a radio in here, but it's Tim's own little private world and Jay wouldn't stray into it without asking permission. Besides, most of his music isn't to Jay's taste – there's too many maudlin lyrics that hit too close to home, the backing all atonal and jagged like the instruments are played with broken glass. Music fell away from him when his old apartment and all his albums burned down, around the same time he stopped listening in order to be alert, and any background noise caught over headphones had him cowering under blankets for the rest of the night. He plays snatches he remembers in his head occasionally, warm synth swells and lilting acoustic guitars and strings speaking to each other around him. Perhaps he should get downloading. It'd be something to do to take his mind off waiting.

Tonight's the night. Two weeks since he left hospital and Tim left town. Is that... a whole month since they last saw one another? It could be a month, it could be a million years. He's spent his nights on the couch after what happened last time he was in their bedroom, with fantasies of cleaning the leaving room and fixing up the bloodstains on the walls. But most of all he imagines Tim walking in, cap in hand, to find Jay bent over the kitchen counter by some blonde Adonis pinning him down and making him scream. Someone taller than Tim, with a washboard stomach and a nose not so crooked as his. And he'd see what he was missing. Which might be a perfect revenge for anyone else, with a few fatal flaws – no blonde Adonis is going to give Jay so much as a second look, and Tim has had enough time on the road to know exactly what he's missing, which is months turning to years of wasting his time. Catching Jay off guard, the only clear memory he has of that one night of debauchery – Tim's brown eyes welling up at the sight of him stripped and manhandled by a stranger, the same eyes in a time before meeting his and smiling and touching him with care and attention Jay was selfish enough to call desperation, pity, anything he could to excuse throwing it away. He touches the spot on his jaw where Tim kissed him first and digs his nails in until the skin breaks.

He shakes himself and sits on his hands. He ought to know erasing the past isn't so simple as cutting away flesh – _I have to fix this_. Jay's getting dressed every day and already the waistband of his jeans is starting to fit a little more snugly, his T-shirts resembling billowing sails less and less with every meal. He shared a takeout pizza with Brian yesterday and while the dough punched him in the stomach all night, the experience of the taste and the grease was even slightly... enjoyable? Will Tim notice? He's less sallow than he was, but in Tim's place, Jay wouldn't even want to look at him long enough to tell a change had taken place.

But it _has_. Telling himself to write a paragraph a day has turned into “You can do better than that, can't you?”, and now there's a whole ten pages on his laptop. They're directionless, disjointed pages with a lot of repeated words but they have to be better than nothing.

A half-empty box of condoms sits next to him on the beside table. He sighs and picks out one silver packet, toying with it to watch the dim light glimmer on the foil. Tearing it open, the smell of treated latex takes him back to frantic nights in hotel rooms and the burning inside him that used to accompany a packet ripping. In hindsight, it's funny how important this seemed at the time. Protecting themselves. Making the proceedings less messy. He chuckles to himself. Too bad there wasn't any protection for Tim's smile, or the way his words fit so well into the gaps where Jay was searching for the right ones.

He stretches out the latex between his fingers and raises his arms to try rolling it over his head – his old party trick. _It's not like I have any better use for them now_. He's got it over his nose when there's a knock on the door, shortly followed by the shutter noise of Brian's phone's camera.

“And that's a Vine. What are you doing in here?”

Jay looks up with a scowl, mustering as much venom as one can when caught with a condom rolled halfway over one's head. “What does it look like?”

“Fair enough.” Brian turns away, smiling, then sticks his head back around the door he's left open again. “I know you're excited for Tim coming home, but that's a bit extreme.”

 _Some more classic tact from Brian right there_. He pulls his laptop onto his knees, the only thing likely to take his mind off it. There's a whole three hours left of this day to get a paragraph done. He loads the document and the only words he can turn out are 'Will he, won't he?' but on he goes. Maybe this is how the man on the cliff is feeling, waiting for whatever he thinks is coming his way. He's been stood there battered by the wind since Jay was in hospital – it's about time something happened for him, but with the dark around him described as so impenetrable it's hard to find a pathway out. Tim's photo has taken the place of the vague picture he held in his mind at first, to which it bore a striking resemblance anyway. There's more light from the full moon in Tim's photo, and the dormant film student in Jay keeps frowning at the ugly centred shot, but it's otherwise uncanny.

He blinks away visions of Tim closing his eyes to kiss him and types a few sentences about sweating palms, stomach cramps, overcrowded thoughts invited by the empty space around him – everything assailing him now. It's a little bloodless but it's a whole paragraph and that'll do for today. Tomorrow might be better.

The clock on the computer reads 9:06 – not even half an hour killed. Where was all this spare time when he needed it running for his life? He laughs. Maybe this is where the minutes went on days when he sat in an apartment alone and it all seemed to run away from him. Perhaps that can go in the story instead of all the physical signs of anticipation - far too corporeal upon rereading.

Is it just the wind outside, or is that a car pulling up? He runs to open the blind and yes, there's headlights growing closer, glistening on the blowing leaves. His whole body is in knots until the car turns into the drive two doors away. 9:14. The night is in full sway, and as the security light along the road dies down, darkness settles over the street and Jay switches out the light.

Sleeping away the time between now and the fateful knock at the door would be best, but it's not going to happen. His heart's thumping in a way he's only known from too much caffeine. Is it worth calling Tim to see if he'll at least let them know what time to expect him? If it all? Or would that make everything worse? At least this way he can, technically, be expected any minute now.

Brian Man has thankfully put the guitar to one's side by the time Jay joins him in the living room. It's almost nostalgic as they sit not looking at one another, placed at opposite ends of the couch. Brian's watching some wildlife documentary while he picks at a box of crackers. Herds of wildebeest storm across the screen, feet pounding in time with the blood surging through Jay's body.

“Hey, Jay. You hungry?”

He holds out the crackers, but Jay shakes his head. There's always some kind of snack lying around the house now – Brian probably thinks he's being subtle. But although Jay turned his nose up at first, it _is_ less of a stretch on his stomach to eat a little as he goes than to sit down for a dedicated meal, and the extra meat on his bones is proof.

But not now. His guts are twisted into knots too tight for any food. A drink might settle his stomach and soothe his shaking nerves, but that isn't going to happen with Brian around. Sure, he overdid it a couple of times while in the wrong sort of mood for drinking, and they're right to be mad about the mess in the living room. But it's being blown _way_ out of proportion. To feel the fire in his throat, spreading to a numbing through his body, might help ease off the tension.

Brian is fiddling and chewing his lip, too, perhaps missing the beer he used to keep in the fridge. He's spent most of the day ironing shirts and rereading the letter from the bar. What exactly does Brian the captain of the football team think he has to worry about? He's the kind of person who's walked into a room and had everyone at their feet in seconds... _and yet_.

He barely leaves the house now. He wakes up yelling every few days. The more time they spend together, the more the loud-mouthed jock of yesterday fades into sepia-toned nostalgia, and the black hood with the ugly red marks seems like some half-remembered nightmare. Brian's been good to him, going so far as to use some of the money he made mowing lawns to pick up some smart clothes from a thrift store that just about fit him and taking him to get his hair cut. It's cropped close, like Brian's own, now. Watching the straggly mess clinging to him fall away from his head onto the shop floor, shaking the last of it away – if he ever filmed his memoirs, he'd have all the symbolism he needed right there.

“Jay, he'll be here.”

“I know,” he says, eyes moving between the mess on the floor around them that no-one's done anything about and the marks on his wrists – still the only colour on his skin.

“Do you even want him to be?”

Jay closes his eyes to hold back the rising water. “I do and don't.”

Brian turns back to his documentary and looks to be out of words, but he pipes up a minute later; “What do you think you'd miss if he walked out on you?”

“Excuse me?”

“It won't be easy, but maybe if you imagine what you'd miss about him, then you'll have your answer. Would you miss _him_ or would you miss just having someone there?”

_Who made you everyone's therapist?_

“You could tell him you're writing. He'll be really proud of you.”

“I guess.” That text, with the photo of the cliff... was it laughing at him? “It's lonely up here” - God knows. Too many questions. Jay picks up the crackers and crumbles one between his fingers. “So... are you feeling okay about tomorrow?”

Brian sits bolt upright and smiles. “Oh, yeah, I'm really excited for it. I've been sat around here way too long. Not that I haven't enjoyed talking to you more these last couple weeks – don't think that. Just, variety. Yeah. How's the book coming along?”

Jay could laugh. Two people trying to one-up each other in a game of avoiding difficult subjects. “It's not really a book. Just thoughts, kind of.”

“I'm sure it's worth reading. You should show us some time.” He furrows his brow and walks over to open the curtains. _At this time of night?_ What's he looking for? Brian stands looking out of the window, letting go of the curtain fabric until it falls back into place and picking it up again a couple times. Is he watching for things that should not be, to, even after all this time?

Then he tenses. “Jay... not to alarm you or anything, but there's a car coming.”

 _Fuck_. He hits off on the TV remote and sits, rigid.

“Okay, that's him, I saw the license plate.” Brian whistles as he exhales. “I'm getting out of here to give you guys some space.”

“You're not going to light candles? Maybe put some mood music on?”

“He said he put all his music on the computer so I could – oh. You're being sarcastic.”

Jay rolls his eyes, the motion the only thing keeping his head together.

Brian sweeps around the other side of him. “I'll kick his ass in the morning for running out on us, but I think what you've got to say is more important. I'll see you later.” And he's gone, the click of his bedroom door highlighting the stillness through all else in the house. _What is Tim doing?_ The high beams pass over the room like a searchlight as he pulls into the garage. No more sound. The door stays still.

 _Fuck_.

A key scrapes against the lock of the door.

So Jay of course does the sensible, adult thing and turns the light off, diving under the blanket and closing his eyes.

All sound drains from the world until the lock clicks, the door closes again, and soft hiking-booted footfalls pad across the room. Even under the blankets Jay catches tobacco once the fresh smell of night air subsides, with the burning end coming towards him. _Fuck_. It's not as though he hasn't run through this scene countless times, apologies and anger. And still the ending, the important part, remains a haze.

_He didn't call for two weeks. That's just dick behaviour._

Running water echoes across the room, the click of glass against the metalwork like the crack of a glacier in late evening silence. Jay lowers his covers one fraction at a time, enough to ensure Tim has his back to him. He skips a breath - it's really him standing in silhouette against the blue light from the moon. A whole person who'll react in ways he can't predict, with words he can't shape the way he does on a page. Perhaps that's why they got into bed together instead of asking awkward questions. Keep jacking him off and you'll get there eventually – it's repetition, rhythm, with one outcome in mind. The body is predictable where words are so easy to scatter.

“I know you're not asleep, Jay.”

 _Fuck_.

“The lights were on thirty seconds ago.”

 _Fuck_.

“I've never seen you sleep on your back.”

Every muscle in his body is tensed. No way he's going to convince as sleeping. His breathing is quick and shallow and Tim will hear it so why won't he just... leave? Come here himself?

“I can see your fucking shoe under the blanket.”

Jay's heart is thumping loud in his ears, enough to eclipse anything else. But not the heavy sigh from across the room.

“Alright. Have it your way.”

A light goes on in the bedroom and Jay catches the tail end in the corner of his eye. He sits up and tussles with blanket that's wrapped all around him and tangled and throws it onto the floor.

“Tim!”

He runs along the corridor and there he is in the doorway, his back to Jay and days of unspoken words crammed into the foot or so between them. He doesn't turn at the steps behind him. Jay should reach out and touch his shoulder, turn him around and kiss him like he used to, but a dead lock in all his limbs stays him.

“Tim?”

He turns around slowly, hunching in on himself, holding out his right hand. In his palm lies the unwrapped condom from earlier, crumpled, like a shed skin. He quirks an eyebrow.

“I can explain,” Jay says, hesitant and stammering. “I haven't used it.”

“I can see that.”

 _You checked, though_. “It's not what you're thinking. I was trying to roll it over my head earlier. Brian made it into a Vine, if you don't believe me.”

“Don't worry, I believe you. I can't imagine even you would think that was going to make a convincing lie.” He's straining to keep a smile off his face. _That's good... right?_

“Let's go sit down,” says Jay. His fingers brush Tim's elbow, but he flinches away and strides ahead. He flicks on a light and looks for the first time in the direction of the devastation still lying on the floor. He shakes his head, slowly, like he would watching the sad ending of a film he already knows.

Jay shifts from foot to foot for a minute, and then heads for the couch light-headed. He sits on the edge, poised for the settling of a familiar weight beside him. Tim looks straight forward. Jay mirrors this because in the time he's been gone Tim has cultivated a few days' stubble and... _wow_. He's dropped the cheap cologne, too, and the scent of complimentary detergent recalls their nights on the road. It's the last thing he needs to think about, although Tim is still holding the condom, turning it inside out and back. _Why?_ Is he hoping to use it? Jay gulps.

Sleeping arrangements depend on what they're about to say to another. A blush rises at the thought of them getting into bed together; not necessarily _doing anything_ , just touching, but Jay's ugly wasted body would still be hanging around him. He doesn't deserve a warm body next to him. Maybe it would be better for everyone if he got in his car to see where the road took him, only having the good sense not to turn back. He shudders. Clumsy hands on his numbed drunk body again, a hard mattress in a strange room, a voice he doesn't know grunting in his ear. He tried to replace Tim with another anonymous body in the dark and it didn't work, leaving him colder and emptier than before. So there must be more to it than sex between them. Evidence. But it doesn't change the fact that Jay is more in love with selective edits of memory than the man sitting next to him.

Tim ruffles the back of his head. “So... you're back from hospital.”

“No, I'm not.”

“I guess I walked into that. Looks like they've done a good job on you, though. You look great. Your hair looks great.”

Jay would concede that, yes, he does look less like a walking corpse than he did a couple weeks back, even if 'great' is an exaggeration. After the haircut there's nothing to hide behind, but he can at least see Tim fiddling with the condom beside him. “They looked after me pretty well. I'm feeling okay, I guess. I can't have any medication until I'm eating more, but I'm working on that.” He folds a corner of blanket over his outstretched middle finger. “The other day I said I was feeling hungry and we high-fived over it.”

“We?”

“Me and Brian. He bought the haircut for me, by the way.”

Tim raises his eyebrows, then nods. “You and Brian. That's good. Are you getting any kind of follow-up treatment? How is Doctor Moreno?”

 _Andrea?_ “Uh, she's good. She likes you. She thinks you look like Bryan Ferry, if that means anything.”

Tim gives his plaid shirt a glance and nods. “Not bad.”

“And I'm going back there on Mondays. Group therapy.”

“That's good. That's good to know. Where's Brian now?”

“He's gone to bed. He's starting his new job tomorrow so I think he wants to be at his best.” Jay speaks slowly. Where's the shouting about the mess on the floor, at Jay doing nothing about getting a job yet?

Tim's still nodding, breathing out smoke slowly. “Now that _is_ good news.”

“It's the one at the bar.”

“You guys are talking now?”

Jay nods. “He's kind of like one of those over-affectionate huskies who don't know their own strength and knock you over all the time. But they're cute, so you learn to like it.”

“That is probably the most accurate description of Brian I've ever heard. I'm glad.” Tim purses his lips, and Jay watches in furtive sidelong glances as he inhales deeply. His stomach sinks. There was only so long the peace could last.

“Okay. After all that with the condom there's really no way for this to go like I was planning, so I'm just going to speak from the heart and see how that turns out. Point is, we need to talk. We need to be straight with each other.”

“That'll be a first.”

“If you're going to be like that then I won't bother. Jay... Look, I understand if you're mad at me. I don't know that running off like that was the right thing to do, but I do know coming back here to you at that time wasn't, either. I'd have thrown my weight around and made everything worse. I don't know if there was a right thing to do or if I'm just too much of a selfish prick to see it. So for that I'm sorry.”

“Okay. Fine. Did you find yourself out there or not?”

“I don't think I'll know for a while yet. I just started driving and didn't know how to stop. But I realised a lot while I was away. Getting mad at you wasn't fair and God knows I've been on the receiving end of that enough times, so maybe I just don't know how else to react. I keep thinking that because I pulled myself out of everything that was going on with me that you should be able to just flip a switch and go back to you, but that's wrong. I'm sorry.”

“Well, what did you do that whole time?” Jay spits, looking at the condom he's still deftly moving between his fingers.

“I went driving, I talked to normal people – nothing like what you're thinking. Need I remind you that you've really no moral high ground to take on that score, anyway?” He sighs. “But I realise I have no right to be angry with you about that, either. I'm sorry for all the names I shouted at you.”

 _Slut, whore_ – Jay runs through the whole litany, flinching with every drunk half-memory. It's only truth, after all.

“I'd never say anything like that about a woman. I don't really know why I think it's okay to do that to you.”

Jay snorts. “Maybe you're admitting, in your own way, how profound a partner I really am.”

“No, it's not like that. It's stupid pride making me lash out and me being so self-centred and I can't possibly think you'd have a problem to do with anything except me. I've never felt like this about anyone before, you know that, and it scares me sometimes. Especially when I think I might lose you. And it's not as if we ever talked about, you know, monogamy or anything like that. I guess we should've, but we could still talk about it now, if it's something you think we need to consider.”

“Is there even a 'we' anymore?”

“Would you like there to be?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, at least that's an answer and not silence.”

“I'm trying. I'm just not so good at talking.”

“Well, nor am I. I think maybe we should've worked on that sooner.”

“Instead of screwing to fill the silence.”

“Yeah. Words are hard, you know, but we got good at that pretty quickly.”

“ _Really_ good,” says Jay, and they both turn in unison to look at the ground, perfectly aware of what the other is thinking.

“Jay... I can't go on like this. I love you so much -”

_Don't._

“- but if you're going to attack me and smash up our house, where do you expect me to go from there? And you're going to have to either start working or sort out some kind of welfare because I can't sustain three people living off my wages. And I'm not ever going to earn more than this – I can't do management positions, you know that, there's too many things that could go wrong. And now I find out you're doing _coke_ -”

“Is that what it was?”

Tim sighs, dropping his jaw like he's about to say something, and sinking back into the couch. “You're an idiot. But you're not where you were a month ago, I can see that, and I don't want to just give up on you. I've spent two weeks seeing all these incredible things, like the ocean and the sky when it's dark enough to see all the stars and all this stuff I've only looked at in pictures, and all I could think was that I wanted you there with me. It tears me up to think of you shut away in here or in some hospital ward when you should be out living your life.”

Two weeks they could've been exchanging mixtapes for driving to and sharing food and kissing under the stars or something sickening like that. He caught a glimpse in that sentence, but it's built on a lie. Tim still wants him. _But why?_

“You're doing the 'why?' look. Do you really need me to tell you after everything we've been through?”

“But that's the past. What the hell am I doing, right now, that makes you want to be with me?”

“Alright. I don't have a way with words but I'm going to try here. I guess one of the things that made you special was that I never really felt like I needed a way with words for you, because you just got it.”

Jay stares at the table and inventories everything on it – empty glasses, laptop, snack wrappers, TV guide, remote. Why did he switch the TV off? It's too quiet for him to summon the courage to break the silence with words.

“No-one else ever told me I was brave.”

Jay shrugs. “Well, they should.”

“But they didn't. When you called me brave, that first night we slept together -”

“The first night we were desperate and sick and coming all over each other's clothes. Don't make it into some big romantic deal when it wasn't.”

“It might have started out that way but it doesn't mean I didn't care for you. And after you said such kind things to me, I... I know you felt it, too.”

Tim's knuckling his mouth like he always does when he's afraid. His eyes are shining, and Jay's done it again – dismiss every intimate experience between them for the sake of making separation easier. He winces his eyes closed. “There's no reason for you to... feel like that. About me.”

“No, Jay. I'm afraid that's not entirely your decision. You need more reasons? You're a lot smarter than you think sometimes. You make me laugh when most people can't and all I know is that when I first moved here, this was just a place I stored my stuff and slept in. It didn't feel like a home until you came here with me.”

“For someone who doesn't have a way with words, you're not doing too bad.”

“Damn it, Jay, just say what you're thinking. Do you want to be with me or not? I'll leave you alone for the rest of your life if that's what you want. But if it's not, please don't do this to me, not because of some idea you have about not being worthy.”

Jay swallows to hold back the choking and bites his lower lip. _I'm not doing this_ to _you. I'm doing it_ for _you_. Tim's dropped the condom on the floor and is wringing his hands, trembling. _You could stop this_. One word, one syllable ending with a hiss, and the man suffering beside him will be okay. Jay will kiss his cheek and they'll fall asleep and wake up together, just like before. Except the smiles would be a lie. How many times will they have this conversation before he sees the truth?

“It's just an idea that you love. You deserve more than that.”

Tim tries to place a hand on his – Jay pulls back and claps it over his mouth. He sighs. “You know when I said that sometimes you're not as stupid as you think?”

“And?”

“Well, at other times you are. Jay, how can you say that when we know each other better than anyone else is ever likely to? I love the person who understands me the most, who cares the most -”

“But you can't _see!_ There's so many things wrong with me.”

“And you're making an effort to learn to live with it instead of running from the problem like before. I can see that. I'm proud of you.” He reaches out to stroke Jay's hair from his eyes. Impulse says to lean away, but why bother? “I want to be there to help you.”

“Why? So you don't have to feel like everything you went through was for nothing?”

“Maybe that's part of it. Is it really so wrong if I want to put a bad experience to good use? Look, the way I see it, we could part ways now and that's two people heartbroken and miserable for sure. But if we give it another try and work on our mistakes, well, maybe there's a chance?”

“But you're wrong about me. I'm not the hero you think I am.”

“Now you're just talking nonsense. You want the truth? I think you are rash, impulsive, stubborn -”

“Hey!”

“You've proven yourself not entirely trustworthy, you're not even good at lying, you have terrible communication skills in general, you let yourself get scared of your own feelings, you're infuriatingly self-righteous a lot of the time -”

“Oh, _I'm_ self-righteous? You're the one who -”

“And if you'd let me finish, I also want you to know you don't know how to let things go, you do nothing to help around the house, you steal all the

blankets while you sleep, and there's this fucking infuriating thing you do where you'll take a box of crackers or something and eat all but, like, five, and put the box back in the cupboard instead of -.”

“This is supposed to make me feel better how?”

“Because I see all of that and I still love you. What is it you think you're hiding that could make all of the good things go away?”

Jay shakes his head, back and forth until the room is out of focus and none of this is real. Brian's voice comes up to him out of the ether; _if you're so stupid, how come you're right?_ And another; _would you miss him, or would you just miss having someone there?_ He finishes with Tim – what then? There's no-one else he wouldn't have to watch his every word around, weaving a home out of a fabric of lies, and no-one else who wouldn't need to ask about the nightmares. No-one else has hands so calloused and rough-worn but so gentle. And Tim, this person with a whole past a whole consciousness who's weighed up every option and _chosen_ to be with him...

Life alone – how would that work out? He'd be back by himself in the cheapest apartment he could find, maybe serving lukewarm fast food or handing out flyers for clubs he's too shy to go in, group therapy on Monday the highlight of his social life. He's practically reaching for the razor again just imagining it for the rest of his life. It doesn't look any more appealing with Tim part of the equation, but if he had someone to come home to at the end of every day... They could try to one-up each other with stories of the worst customers and Tim can play his instruments to soundtrack Jay's daily paragraph.

 _What would I miss?_ Something tells him he should have some dramatic, poetic answer for this, but all he comes up with is snippets of conversation. Debating the best Monty Python sketches, Tim making up unlikely personas for their one-night neighbours, trying to make sense of news headlines in their own little world. Good things. Little good things too small to detect when he's running through his own memories and sabotaging every one.

They're not a miracle cure for one another. But that doesn't mean they can't be around to help the medicine go down. Not an answer, but an aid. The scars on his wrists look paler now. Less wilting flowers, and more like sealing wax.

He lets out a juddering breath and moves his hand to brush Tim's elbow. “It's not about deserving it.”

Tim drifts his finger over the back of his hand, curling around to the skin of his underarms. “If you're not a project I have to work on, I'm not a prize you have to earn; can we agree on that much?”

Jay nods. “Are we going to be okay?”

“I don't know, but I want to try.”

“I'm sorry, too. I'll clean up in here, I will, I promise. It's just that I think I'm going to do one thing and I think about all the other things I have to do and it's like this huge black hole. I can't get out of it.”

“I know.” Tim places a warm hand on his; this time, he doesn't recoil, spreading his fingers for Tim to clasp. “”We'll get through it, one thing at a time.”

There's no getting away from it. _Come on_. He only has to spit the words out once and they'll never have need to bring it up again, though burning pain and unguarded unfamiliar hands are creeping up on him all over again, shudders running through him. “I'm sorry about that night, too. To be honest I don't really know why I did it, but the last thing I wanted was to hurt you.”

“It's okay, Jay. I'm glad you told me that.”

“I think it was... I went out and everyone was staring so I didn't want to stay at the bar, but I felt ashamed to come back here, so... I just went home with the first guy who offered. That's it. I don't remember a whole lot after that.” He coughs. “I know that, uh, the sex was safe, though. I remember that much.”

“That's good to know. I think we should probably both get tested sometime. Just to be sure, when we've spent so much time blacking out and all.”

“Okay.”

“I did it a couple of times back in college, when I had weeks I couldn't remember, and it's not as embarrassing as you think.”

“I said okay,” says Jay in a voice pitched higher than usual, forcing a smile.

“You see? We're doing it. We're talking. It's not so hard, is it?”

Jay laughs, trying to force out the memory of strange and ungentle hands pulling at his clothes, too drunk to stand. “Maybe not.”

“We need to do more of this, alright?”

He dares to glance at Tim out of the corner of his eye and he's sitting with pursed lips and his hands folded, staring into the distance. “If it makes you feel any better I didn't enjoy it. It just hurt. And maybe I deserved that, too -”

Jay rests his head on his hand and covers his mouth with his fingers, like it'll keep it all back. No luck, as usual. His voice rises an octave with the strain of keeping back tears, and it's all in vain as his body heaves with sobs.

“Jay, no.”

Tim leans forward and takes him in his arms, pulling him close, rubbing the small of his back through his T-shirt. And Jay holds him in turn, because it's too tight with his arms pressed against his chest. Jay's poised and waiting on instruction to stop crying, pull himself together, to be told it's all okay really.

“Go on, let it all out,” Tim whispers, kissing the top of his head, and all of a sudden Jay doesn't need to. He pulls away and smoothes his hair, and this time, the smile comes by itself.

“From now on, I'm there if you need me. I'll talk out anything you need to and I'll stay up with you and I'll take a day off work if you think it'll help, but you have to talk to me, okay? I can't do anything if you won't tell me what's going on.”

Jay nods. Tim drifts his fingers across his cheek and jaw and that stranger did the same - “You're kind of funny-looking, but you'll do” - and the raised eyebrows at the difference in height and appearance as they walked out of bar. Maybe that was why he wanted Jay face down, who knows? But it's not important, because Tim's roughened hand is brushing away his tears and through the crystal facets clouding his eyes, he's looking at him with the same expression Jay's seen on people looking at beautiful sunsets and cherished photographs.

Jay sniffs back tears as they draw together. His head falls on Tim's shoulder, his lips next to his ear. He kisses the skin there and says it, just to try it, to see what the words feel like leaving his mouth; “I love you”. They rustle, like a cooling breeze or the ocean coming home to shore. They soothe, and yet it's such a small and fragile set of syllables for everything that's welling up in him. So he says it again, again, _I love you I love you I love you_ , pulling him closer. _I love you_ mouthed to the feel of his skin, _I love you to_ the curve between neck and shoulder where Jay spent the happiest nights of his life, _I love you_ to his perfect hair, his smile stretching against Jay's neck, the smell of cigarettes.

“I get the point, Jay.” They draw apart and entwine their fingers, sitting facing each other cross-legged; the rest of the room darkens as lights one by one go out along the street. “From now on, if there's anything on your mind, anything you need me to reassure you of, then we're going to talk it through, okay? I'll do the same. I'll be patient if you'll be honest.”

“I can do that.” Jay swallows. “You know I haven't felt like this about anyone else either, right? And I don't even want to look at anyone else again?”

Tim leans in to kiss him, a soft peck on the cheek. “So, have you been sleeping on here while I was gone?”

“Yeah. There's still, you know, on the floor. I'm sorry I didn't do anything about it while you were away.”

“That's okay. I'll deal with it. But not right now. I'm kind of tired from driving.”

Jay strokes the blanket bunched around him. “So are we...?”

“I'd still feel weird sleeping in there. Will you stay with me on here?”

Jay nods, and leans in. He tilts his head to his right, Tim to his left, and their lips meet with a tingling somewhere in between. Jay reaches up to push Tim's hair from his eyes, rubbing the softness between his fingers. “Of course.”

Tim's fingers linger on his jaw as he stands and crosses the room, collecting clothes. Jay sits up and unlocks Tim's phone to set an alarm for the next morning. He swipes the screen - Tim's wallpaper is the photo he took on the edge of the cliff.

“That's pretty much exactly what I was thinking, you know,” says Jay as Tim sits down and undresses. When they're both stripped down to boxers, Tim nestles in behind him and they lie back, wrapping blankets around them in a joint effort. Being close to him like this is familiar, as comfortable as sharing a couch a foot shorter than either of them can be, and all the words Jay wanted before rush at him at once. “I forgot to tell you I started writing it down.”

Tim's lips, pressed behind his ear, pull into an involuntary smile. “You'll have to let me read it some time.”

“When I'm done,” says Jay, and he means it. Tim has one arm stretched out under Jay's shoulder, and the other moves away the covers to find his hand. Fingers slip between fingers and Jay lifts their hands together, kissing each knuckle in turn. “I really missed you.”

“I missed you, too.” Tim's words warp into a yawn and he shifts back into the cushions. “We'll talk more tomorrow.”

Jay closes his eyes, but a tingling on the back of his thighs has him shifting. “Your leg hair's tickling me.”

Tim sighs. “Turn over.”

They roll to face the other way, toward the window, and with his face in Tim's hair Jay takes a breath laced with the scent of motel-grade shampoo, and his heart skips. But he's done with transient spaces, even if it's good to have someone else clean your room and a new invented job every few days. They're here now, and other people rely on them. “So, if Brian's a husky, I think you're a hedgehog.”

Tim turns his head. “Have you been drinking? Be honest.”

 _Not this again._ “No. Ask Brian. He won't let me out of his sight long enough.”

Apparently satisfied, Tim lies back and snuffles. Jay rearranges the covers and strokes a hand over the soft swell of Tim's stomach.

“No, but listen, it's because you're kind of prickly a lot of the time, but it's only because you're vulnerable underneath.”

“I'd stick with your sea metaphors if I were you.”

“What did you mean when you said it was lonely up there?”

“What I said? I called it like I saw it. Not everything has some deeper meaning attached to it. But I guess I hoped it'd reassure you I was coming back.”

“Okay. I was thinking and there was this one time when I was little, in class, and I had this irrational fear of volcanic eruptions. I mean, it seemed more rational to me than dinosaurs, but -”

“That's nice, Jay. Tell me about it tomorrow.”

“No, it's quick, I promise. Then one day I said maybe we should invent something to kind of plug all the volcanoes, and everyone laughed at me because I hadn't thought it through.”

“Don't make me regret asking you to talk more.”

“No, but, I think in a way that's what I've been doing with my feelings the last few months. Trying to stopper it and just making everything worse in the long run.”

“I'm glad you realised that. I really am, and I'm so proud of you, but I'm so tired.”

Jay kisses the back of his neck and closes his eyes. He's safe, he's not alone, and it's time to rest. He tries to adjust himself to the metronome of Tim's breathing, in and out, to soothe himself off to sleep. His throat's raw, still, and a light rain begins to thrum on the roof.

“It's raining.”

“Is it, really?”

“When I was little -”

“Can we _please_ do this in the morning?”

“- I used to think I was safe when it rained because, like, thieves and murderers wouldn't come out when it was wet, so I was okay. But that's not true.”

“No-one's going to break in here and hurt you. Not on my watch. Go to sleep, Jay.”

“It's not that, I...” he stops to swallow the lump in his throat and ends up sniffling instead. “I don't want to hurt myself anymore.”

With that Tim's on like a light and twisting onto his back. “Do you think you're going to?”

“No. At least, not tonight. I'm so happy now but I'm scared if I go to sleep I'll wake up and be, you know, sad again.”

“Do you need me to stay up with you?”

“No. Get some sleep, get to work. I'll have to fall asleep eventually anyway.”

Tim gives his bicep a gentle squeeze. “Here if you need me.”

Jay nods, and they fall back into place with Jay's arm around Tim's waist and legs bent together. He shifts his hips, shoulders, knees, revelling in the warmth of skin on skin. Sleep doesn't come easy with his neck at an incline and anxieties brewing, but Jay drifts off to the light patter of rain and smallest smell of nicotine clinging to Tim's hair. When it's Tim's turn to wake them both by screaming and gasping for air, Jay's there to pull him back to land. They lie in a sleeping tangle until they're woken by the first gold blush of dawn coming through the curtains, the trill of rising birdsong, and the sound of Brian falling over a footstool.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the interest of public safety, I'd just like to note that attempting to roll a condom over your head might seem like a cheap laugh, but it's really quite dangerous and can lead to suffocation if you get it wrong. Don't copy Jay, kids. Does his risk assessment look trustworthy based on evidence? I thought not.


	21. Staccato

_You are not a victim, you just scream with boredom  
_ _You are not evicting time  
_ _Chimes! Goddamn, you're looking old  
_ _You'll freeze and catch a cold  
_ _'Cause you've left your coat behind  
_ _Breaking up is hard, but keeping dark is hateful  
_ _I had so many dreams, I had so many breakthroughs  
_ _We should be on by now_  
\- David Bowie

Stumbling blind and shutting his eyes the second he walks through the door, Brian yelps, takes the fall on his hands and ends up in downward-facing dog position over... he opens one eye, slowly, to keep his balance. A footstool. Who the fuck leaves a footstool in the doorway where no-one's legs can reach it?

Before he has time to steady himself Tim leaps up, resplendent in grey boxers and squaring his shoulders, clenching his fists, eyes darting to and fro to find the intruder. He drops the heavy breathing and wilts when he sees it's only Brian, a hand pressed to his forehead. He falls back on the couch and covers himself with what little blanket Jay hasn't used to make himself into a burrito. The mop of brown hair poking out on the pillow stirs, before he snuffles and turns over. _Lucky for some_.

“What is this doing so far away from the couch? It's not like any of us is particularly leggy.”

Tim yawns, rubbing his eyes. “How did you not see it?”

“I had my eyes closed.” He saunters over to the kitchen and readies the coffee maker. _Just like any other morning. Nothing to worry about._

“Dare I ask why? Is it some new Zen balance routine you're trying?”

“No, I just saw you two all cosy on there and didn't want to interrupt.” He turns away, busying himself with the coffee scoop, while Tim pulls on the clothes lying next to the couch.

“We weren't doing anything.” Dressed in his usual plaid and denim, Tim saunters over to his side and whispers. “Has everything been okay with you?”

“Wait 'til this is done, we'll go in the other room,” says Brian over the hiss of boiling water. Bubbles rise to the surface, and he has approximately a minute to prepare what he wants to say. He's been writing mental essays with the kind of enthusiasm that would've really aided his education – what the hell Tim thought he was doing running out on someone who needs him, why Brian ended up volunteered for looking after him, they made their bed together and he can come back and lie in it. He could've given a speech worthy of Shakespeare, only the words ring hard and ugly upon seeing him again.

Seeing him _again_. He's not the scowling man Brian's been living with for months, and nor is he the kid with no sense of direction who couldn't meet your eyes he first met all those years ago. The lines around his eyes have paled and he's leaning easy on the counter with his first cigarette of the day, stepping out of the shadows cast by the closed curtains. Waking and walking into the sunlit room and seeing two heads, one lighter and one dark, pressed together sleeping – he grinned like a Cheshire Cat on weed. They look right, in spite of everything.

When the machine clicks they adjourn to the music room. In unison they both take a sip or two of coffee and stare ahead – Tim at the sleeping man in front of them and Brian at a neglected guitar to his left. Tim coughs, covering his mouth. They might as well be whistling.

“So,” says Brian, “how was the sea?”

Tim nods and stubs hi cigarette out in a vase on the windowsill. “It was good. But don't believe the hype.”

“And did you find yourself out there or not?”

“Fuck knows. I found some time to think, though.”

“That's good.” He pauses. “Do you have any idea how badly I want to be mad at you right now? You're a fucking idiot, but I think your little road trip may have inadvertently made a lot of things better. I think we all needed a break from each other and maybe there were better ways of going about it, but here we are.” He nods toward Jay on the couch. “Him, for one. You know, just yesterday alone I spoke to him more than I have in the whole time we've been here.”

“He told me you were getting along better. And he was writing again. I'm really proud of both of you.”

“So you should be, for picking up your mess.”

“I'm sorry, Brian. It wasn't on you to fix this but you did. I just had to get out, clear my head. I don't know that it was the right thing to do, but I think coming back that day might have been the wrong thing.”

Brian waves cigarette smoke away from his face. “Don't do it again.”

“I won't.” Tim gazes off in the direction of the couch. It could be the smoke making things hazy, or it could be a mist in his eyes. “I don't think I need to.”

“He's doing really well, you know. He's been writing, even if he won't let me look at it, and I keep leaving bowls of, like, snack food around and he's eating.” Brian laughs. “Christ, I'm making him sound like some sort of a pet.”

“No, no, I think you've got the right of it.”

“And I think he's doing okay for himself. But, if you want to make it up to me, you can drive me into work this morning.”

“Is that where you're going looking all fancy?”

Brian nods. No-one specified a colour scheme or dress code so he's picked out a royal blue shirt and light red tie he's been told brings out his eyes, to go over the only good black pants he owns. Under the fabric, his stomach is grinding, and why is his watch moving so fast today? “It's probably also the reason I'm not more mad at you now.”

“It'll be fine. It's hard trying to, you know, re-emerge, but once you know what you're doing and you can just get on with it, it gets better. And you're better with people than I'm ever going to be.”

It's on the tip of his tongue, but Brian holds it back with a smile. _I'm not so sure_. His last attempts at interaction with people outside of this house – shuffling awkwardly around Jay's doctor, the disastrous date – haven't exactly set him up to be brimming with confidence at the prospect of dealing with small talk that doesn't realise how invasive it is. A what have you done since college here, and a where do you go for a night out there, and every masked, memory-lapsed reason he doesn't have an answer comes flooding back.

Tim's read the silence and places a hand on his tensed shoulder, warm and soothing on the tight muscle. “Come on. If I can do it, you can do it.”

“Why do I feel like we've had this conversation before?”

“Because we have, just on opposite sides, usually. You ready to go?”

“I guess. Ready as I'll ever be. I'm just gonna check my hair and I'll see you in the car?”

Tim nods, and they go their separate ways. In the corner of Brian's eye he's sitting next to Jay, who's awake and propped up on one elbow, with Tim petting his hair and smiling. Brian makes for the bathroom and splashes his face with cold water, checking in the mirror for spots he missed while shaving, that the bags under his eyes don't look too heavy, that nothing in his expression gives away the nerves behind it. He smiles, just to try it on. His face is a good face, and maybe a grin will distract anyone who looks from shaking hands.

“See you, Jay,” he trills as he leaves, sweeping past the couch.

“Good luck,” he says, and would you believe it, he even sounds sincere. Jay has regained control of the remote and pulled his laptop onto his knee, though it's not switched on yet. He's nursing a coffee left over from the earlier brew and has a bowl of cereal in his lap – eating of his own volition. _This is good_. Nothing went wrong the whole time Tim was away. Jay's been getting better. There's no reason for anything to happen if he's alone for a little while today.

“So, where are we going?” says Tim, turning the key as Brian throws himself into the passenger seat.

“The bar I was telling you about.” He could try to verbally sketch some rough directions, but the meandering route taken by the bus is lost to time. At least Tim knows the area, and he has a good twenty minutes in the car before arriving... at least, he did on the bus. _Fuck_. By car they'll at least halve the journey. His mouth turns to a desert sucking up the first rain of the year and, please God, but he doesn't want to sweat all over his shirt. It's too soon. He's not ready. They're all going to _know_ , he'll slip up somewhere, he's bound to, he's too far gone.

 _If I can do it, you can do it_.

Tim's doing it. He's there almost every day – the quiet type, they'll think, a little surly, but as far as he's aware Tim's co-workers aren't _suspicious_ of him in any way. And if Tim can do that after a childhood in hospital and being fully conscious for everything life after college threw at them, then yes, so can Brian.

But then... Tim is an incredible person, time and time again. Brian is just Brian.

He flattens his palms on his thighs and looks at the cool blue sky of early morning. A song's playing, softly strummed guitar, flowing and breezy. _Do your job well, and they'll leave you alone_.

“So. This morning, last night, whenever. Did you guys talk, or did you just get into bed together again?”

“Most talking I've ever done in my life, probably.”

 _If I didn't know better, I'd say that was a smile_. Tim's fighting to stop the upturning corners of his mouth, and he's reddening, taking one hand from the wheel to push strays locks of hair away. Any mention of Jay usually precipitates staring at his feet, rubbing his hands, growling distraction out of the side of his mouth. Now he's leaning back from the wheel, head back, chest open.

“I'm... meant to be taking him out for dinner later.”

“Well, who's being fancy now?”

Tim shrugs. “Apparently it's something normal couples would do, so we're going to try that. And if you're working now I don't think money will be an issue.”

 _Please don't speak too soon_. There's a million things he could fuck up in eight hours, his hands are shaking already and he has to carry piles plates and glasses back and forth, and with every second they're getting closer...

He swallows, blinks a couple of times, and smiles. Tim is happy and that is the main thing. “I'm glad to hear it.”

“You've changed your tune.”

“Well. I got to know him a little better. He's a sweet guy, and it's obvious how much he adores you, when he's lucid.”

“And he has been? You're absolutely sure?”

“I've barely let him out of my sight, and I've been really careful not to leave money lying around, and I did what his doctor told me to and locked up all the sharp things in the house. I think we should both try to worry about ourselves for today.” He sounds like he's asking his parents for pocket money, but there it is again - the threat of a smile from Tim. “It won't break your face, you know.”

“I'm impressed. Maybe you should be a therapist and not a bartender. But how have _you_ been?”

“Uh... me? Good. I guess. Nervous as hell.”

“You'll be fine. When did you get the letter?”

“Like a week ago?”

“Not much time to get ready.”

“Not much time to over-think,” Brian adds, but it rings false. Can you really over-think something? He accused Tim enough, but... doesn't it make sense to plan? To have a script, as it were. Through the window, the woods enclosing Tim's house are thinning out, the car eating up the road. Tall bushy pines thin to slender saplings closed off by white fences, and one or two shops are looking familiar. _Fuck_. They can't be far away now.

_Why did I think I was ready for this?_

At a turning to the right is the stop where he first stepped off the choking bus and took a deep breath into his tightened lungs – the same constriction is winding its way through him now. The front of the bar, all white, glares blinding in the bright morning. The windows may be molten gold in the rising sun, but it's hard to believe the streets are paved with it.

Tim pulls up a couple of doors down. 8:52 – maybe they could wait here a moment. Or not. It's not a designated parking space. _This is it_. He runs his palms over his hair to smooth it, succeeding only in giving himself a tuft towards the crown, complimenting his bewildered expression nicely.

 _Fuck_.

“I'll head over just after five to pick you up, okay?”

“R-right.”

“You'll be _fine_ , okay? Just give yourself a chance. They're clearly willing to. You know, I used to take notes of where things were and what to do when I first started in a new place, just to make things a little easier. And when it comes to talking to people, I usually just throw out loads of questions before they have the chance to ask about anything uncomfortable.” Up ahead a couple walk into the bar for breakfast, and Tim laughs. “You know, out of everything that's happened to the three of us to bring us to this point, I think the one I really never would've anticipated was me giving you social advice.”

 _That shouldn't be funny. Everything that's happened to him is tragic_. Brian lifts a hand to cover the smile spreading across his face, until the man next to him starts to chuckle. And within seconds they're both laughing until they're crying, until they forget the remark in the first place, until the clock reads 8:58 and Tim still has the motor running.

“Go on, or we'll both be late. I'll see you later, yeah? Break a leg.”

Brian steps out of the door and hops onto the pavement and Tim disappears off to the right. The last time he heard those three words he had a shield of garish stage make-up on his face and an audience waiting. _Guys and Dolls_. He could still do the accent if he tried, if anyone wanted to hear it. The smile falls from his face, leaving a hollow in his stomach where the laughter was. A chill wind weaves its way under his thin shirt and rustles the leaves above him. He's shaking as he folds his arms around himself.

 _You can get this over with now, or you can make yourself late and make everything worse_.

Pressing his fingertips into his flesh he puts one foot forward, then another, and another, and the bar is coming forward to meet him. There's an old-fashioned sign swinging to and fro above the door, emblazoned with the dolphin logo and creaking in time with his steps. Inside, there's a few clusters of people in coloured armchairs, chatting over morning coffee. Behind the glass he's still cold, still trembling from more than a fresh breeze. Will he get some cue to take a place he's not sure he'll find?

A flash of red hair topping pink moves across the room, bending to attend to a group of students with books scattered over the table. It's Laurel, from his interview. _She seemed nice_. He places a hand on the door, and if he stands like this much longer he's going to look weirder than he already does, so he pushes with his arm and the rest of him follows.

 _I'm in_.

The groaning floorboards give him away in seconds. Laurel looks up from the table she's clearing and grins, motioning for him to follow as she dashes back to the kitchen with a precarious stack of crockery. She's rinsing away coffee dregs by the time he joins her, stepping though saloon-style swing doors into a greenhouse of steam and clattering china.

“I'm Laurel.”

“I remember. Hi.”

“Guys, this is Brian. He'll be helping us out front for a while, hopefully. Brian, this is Tony -” she gestures to a tall man chopping vegetables like a machine and forgetting to drop the knife as he waves, “ - and Luke.”

Luke mumbles something unintelligible from the sink, over which he's bent scrubbing pots like his life depends on it. His face burns redder when Brian turns in his direction, which is impressive, considering the pizza-like texture of his skin. _That's one aspect of getting older I can't complain about_. With his face half-hidden behind a cap and his downcast shy stare, he could almost pass for Jay's little brother.

Laurel breezes over from counting the cakes and hands him a dolphin pin. “If you follow me, I'll show you around.” She leads him out of the kitchen into light and fresh air. “So this is where we keep all the condiments, bathrooms are back there, I'll be in the office if you need me, though I'm sure you won't.”

They move from one thing to another with no pause, all the shelves and compartments blurring into one. She pauses to tend to a young family sharing croissants and in the gap, Brian has time to think. _Great_. The bar is unoccupied, the coloured bottles dull in the still daylight. If he makes it through the day without slopping someone's lunch all over his only smart pants it'll be a minor miracle.

“So, am I not being trained to go behind the bar?” he asks as Laurel reappears.

“Before noon? It's a little early,” she says, and the parents behind them erupt in laughter.

His heart is in his throat. He was right, and what he'd give to be wrong. He has no idea how to talk to people anymore, and now they're laughing. And he's just stood there, eyes fixed on the ground for fear of the mocking shine to their eyes. There's nothing to hold onto to give him a centre of balance.

Rising up from somewhere he'd forgotten, old Brian comes back to tell him the socially competent thing to do would be to laugh _with_ them. Of course it is. So he does, and it's all smoothed over, and he follows Laurel to the door of the office.

“This is about as busy as it gets before midday,” she says, breathless already. “You'll be taking over from me for today. Just clearing tables and taking orders, if I give you this -” and she skips across the kitchen to hand him a notepad small enough to fit in his breast pocket. She shows him the bread selection, points out the table numbers, and leaves.

And from there, three hours vanish into a blur of torn paper and breakfast food. He jots down every question he'll need to ask on the first page of the pad – bread selection, tea selection, side orders for later, do they know where the salt is? Back and forth, shouting orders to the kitchen and there's no time to worry, not unless he wants to mess up and be given something to worry about – he's out of breath, like he was back when he used to run. Months of watching daytime TV on the couch have taken their toll on his aching feet, and he really should've put something in his knotted stomach before he left to salivate over a tray of burnt bacon, sizzling on the side and swimming up to his nose every time he walks past. _Keep going. You're doing great_. And if he mixes up the table numbers a couple of times, or forgets to ask which bread they want their sandwich in, it's no big deal. All he has to do is go out and correct the mistake, and besides, Tony in the kitchen is too busy to notice what Brian's doing.

“How the hell did you manage to break another one? I guess I must be nearly out of butter because it's all on your fingers!”

Four hours down and Laurel whistles him over to the office, not looking up from the papers she's shuffling. He freezes. _What did I do wrong?_ He's been mumbling and trailing off when talking to the customers... _but isn't that normal when I'm concentrating so hard on learning the ropes_? If hapless Luke still has a job, surely he's done alright, for a first day? Why is Laurel smiling with her admittedly charming dimples so much?

She holds the swing door open for him, tapping her fingers briskly against the wood. “Coffee room's in there. Make me one, won't you? We've got half an hour, so you can stay here or come outside with me, if you want.”

Brian stumbles into the room and bends double laughing as soon as the door shuts. There are tears in his eyes as he switches on the machine and waits for the water to heat. _Oh yeah. Breaks are a thing_.

He shoulders open the back door, the open air bathing him in cool wind after the sun-trap of the glass-fronted bar. Laurel's stood against the frame, leaning on the brick wall with a cigarette balanced between two glossy pink-enamelled fingers. It takes him back to kissing girls behind the gym back in high school, and then the kiss in the rain the other week - the same flush rises to his face. He waves it away - he had enough time to dwell on the bus home. _The past is in the past_.

“This doesn't bother you, does it?” she says, gesturing with the hand holding the cigarette.

Brian shakes his head. “My housemate does it ,so....”

“Is that the artist or the comedian?”

 _What is she – oh_ . What is this habit other people have of remembering his own lies better than he does? The interview was _weeks_ ago. “The comedian.”

“Will I have heard of him?”

“Not likely. We're all kind of new around here.”

“It must be exciting to have all three of you going on stage.”

“Uh, no, my stage days are over for now,” says Brian, and the words hit him like a punch to the gut. She's raising her eyebrows as she exhales smoke, and biting her lower lip to suppress a smile. _She's not buying a word of it. Get out of the spotlight_.

“Do you live alone?”

She nods.

“That's impressive in this economy.”

She laughs. “Not really.  I work hard and save a lot.”

 _That's not what everybody else says._ Most other people he speaks to make life today out to be some dystopian nightmare where you need a college degree to work in a fast food joint, and you can own a house but only if you share it with thirty other people. “Everyone, like, my age thinks it's impossible.”

She shrugs. “They're probably spending all their money on phones. It's easy if you have a job.”

“I guess I have you to thank for that.”

“You're doing great so far,” she says. “It's got to be a big contrast for you after all you told me about the last few years. So, were you any good? Your band?”

“No,” he says, and she laughs. “Looking back I kind of think there's only so many times you can hear the same three chords, you know?”

She nods and looks off into the scenic parking lot stretching off in front of them, expecting him to fill the silence. With what? This isn't like college, where he can ask what a new person is studying and complain about it with them. The adult version, then, must be “Where do you work?”. He's a second away from asking but, oh yes, they've been doing the same job for the last four hours. What else do grown-ups talk about? Dishwasher tablets?

 _Think of something to say_. There's little to comment on in the setting around them, asphalt and waste disposal and empty beer cans rolling with the wind, an urban tumbleweed substitute. _Think of something to say_. It's become a mantra, rattling around in his head and shutting off anything else. Laurel shifts from one foot to the other beside him, taking her coffee cup from the wall periodically and sipping. _Don't tell me she's awkward too_.

“So... have you lived here long?”

“All my life, really. It doesn't change much.”

“No. I can tell that already.”

She lifts her thin eyebrows again. _No, she's not awkward. She's not interested_. Quiet falls again and maybe the town is to blame. If only he had a hobby. How is he supposed to find anything to talk about when all he's done for two weeks is sit in the house with Jay and tend to a few gardens? So, the options. Join some sports club with people five years younger than him. And it's not as though he can come home drunk every night when they're trying to turn the house into impromptu rehab. The tightness grips his chest, familiar but never friendly.

 _Just say the first thing you think of like you used to._ He clears his throat and swallows the last of his coffee. “So you could say you're kind of... resting on your Laurels?”

Her jaw drops, and her eyes flit from side to side like she's choosing between laughter and punching him. She opts for the former, shaking her head all the while, and leads him inside with a pat on the back. His hands are still shaky as he resumes his work, enough that he takes extra time delivering orders, assuming it's better a little late than in a pile on the gleaming floor. Three and a half hours to go. If he can avoid fucking up in that time he can go home with head held high and brag about it. And maybe Jay will see this working lark's not so bad after all.

He's stacking plates and trying to avoid introducing his shirt to pasta sauce when the door opens and raucous laughter follows. The sun has outlined the windows with gold and waits low in the sky for the end of his shift – _there's always one who comes in just as you're closing_. Only there's six of them. Two girls and three guys around his age, plus one older man. They take one of the round tables by the window and immediately spread pieces of paper from the folders they're carrying all over it. His palms are dampening just trying to gauge where he could place a cup of coffee without marking all the paperwork, but he trots over to them with pen poised and forces a smile.

“Can I get your order?”

It's coffees all round, save for a blonde girl in the corner asking for green tea. The sharp, clean smell of the water hitting the leaves nestled at the bottom of the glasses they serve it in takes him back to college mornings and three-day attempts at detoxing. Maybe it's a habit he should take back up again. He's certainly getting exercise here. The tray rattles on his arm as he takes it over to where they've thankfully shifted most of the papers – stripes of black text two or three lines at a time.

 _Scripts_.

He draws a sharp breath.

It's only polite to ask about it. It's practically in the job description to do so.

 _You're doing important work, too, even if it's not exciting_.

He coughs, and the company falls silent. “So... are you guys in a play or something?”

“We're doing _Death of a Salesman_ ,” they all clamour to say, with the tallest guy getting there first, everyone speaking in a melee with the worst Noo Yoik accents he's ever heard. Brian laughs to himself. Perhaps in this case he's not missing out on anything after all.

“It's our first after graduation.”

"God Almighty, he'll be great yet. A star like that, magnificent, can never really fade away!" says the blonde girl.

“Learn your own lines half as well as mine and we might actually make it through a full rehearsal,” snipes the man next to her, to general laughter.

“Good luck with it,” Brian smiles. They're all well-dressed and organised and fresh out of school. How can they be _younger_ than him?

A shorter dark-haired man lifts his cup in approval. “It's only an amateur performance, but we try.”

“Very, very amateur,” the older man intones, to sneers-turned-smiles from the others.

“If you were just a little younger, you'd be perfect as Biff,” says the blonde girl. “We had to get this clown instead.” She knocks the ginger guy lightly on the side of the head, smiling brightly – clearly only an excuse to touch him.

Brian leans back and tears the skin of his lip stretching his smile. The floorboards creak under his feet, like they did on the stage at college. He's shaking just as much too, but there'll be no applause after this performance with no-one to watch but the audience of judging voices in his head. It's survival, not expression.

_You knew what was up the road. What did you think was going to happen?_

He moves away from the table and stands at the bar, to inventory the remainder of the customers and catch a breath. _What the hell is wrong with you?_ The ground lies unsteady beneath his feet, and for what, exactly? Some teenage dream and a bad amateur dramatics society? He'd be slapping himself if it wasn't for all the others. But they're there, haloed in gold by the ageing of the day, laughing together and swapping papers back and forth and pressing their hands to their hearts for recitals. And he's stood half-blind in the light with quaking knees and only a pad and paper with orders of other people's leisure jotted down to show for his twenty-six years on the planet.

 _What was it like to feel part of something?_ There was applause, hugs, glasses clinking, a warm glow in his chest burning brighter than any spirits he downed in the aftermath of a show. How could he ever go back to that with the weight of lies anchoring him?

He's on his way to the staff room. His footsteps echo all around the room and they're watching, of course they are, but he has to get out. He can't force air into his lungs, and they can't see his reddening face, and he can't _breathe_. He has to get there or he's going to die.

He opens the door and his legs buckle the second it shuts, and with his support knocked out from under him, he slumps on the ground and curls in on himself so no-one can see his face. Like it makes a difference when they've had a good look at his fake smile anyway, and those lines deepening around his eyes, and they'll notice the pause to process the right words before he speaks and the stammer when he's found the closest thing he can.

Logically this has to be a panic attack, like Jay has. It's adrenaline. Nothing more. _Just breathe in and out and get back out there_ . But he can't. _Panic attack._ Snappy little syllables loaded with airy logic that don't apply to him and the waves crashing over his head. All assembled out there will look at him and know everything as much as they would if he still had that ridiculous mask over his head. He's got to wait here and steady himself, pace every breath, or he's _going to die_.

That trip home. Not that he deserves to call it home anymore. Someone else's home. A little boy who wanted to be in films to have adventures, and all it comes to is the least money he can make by law forever. Unless he counts the acting everyone does. Pretending it's what they want when they go home to an empty house from an emptier job and watch whatever comes on TV until they've put enough space between themselves and their next shift as possible.

 _Tim_ . He can call Tim to take him home. If he can only make it to the car outside he'll never have to come back again. Tim will understand... won't he? But he was so mad at Jay, and now he'll think Brian's the same not even trying, giving up after one day. _Useless_ . And it's not as though Brian has a _right_ to feel this way, not like Tim and Jay do. He had everything. His chest tightens in a vice, choked now with the sobs forcing their way through him. He pushes one hand against the filing cabinet next to him, but his legs give way again and he succeeds only in knocking it over and sending its contents sprawling everywhere. Papers scrawled with spidery handwriting spill across the floor – like in Tim's house. On video. The floor covered with symbols and YOUR FAULT.

 _YOUR FAULT_.

He stuffs a fist into his mouth to stifle a scream, just as the door creaks and announces Laurel's appearance. He catches a second of her lofty eyebrow before his eyes force closed.

 


	22. Serenade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm attaching a warning for mildly NSFW content involving consent issues - nothing graphic or malign (I hope that would be obviously out of character at this point), but wires are crossed and one party is uncomfortable and I mention this just to be on the safe side. Take care of yourselves.

_If I could just leave my body for the night_  
 _Then we could be dancing, no more missing you while I'm gone_  
 _There we could be dancing and you'd smile and say, "I like this song"_  
 _And when our eyes will meet then we will recognise nothing's wrong_  
 _And I wouldn't feel so selfish, I won't be this way very long_  
 _To hold you in time_  
\- Animal Collective  
  


Tim lowers his glass with a sneer, shreds of sliced lemon floating in the dregs. “I don't remember specifying I wanted a drink that was warm and tastes like a handwipe.”

“It's a finger bowl, Tim.”

Jay has one sitting in front of him, too. The reflection of the candle flame dances on the water, waiting for him to plunge fingertips slimy with grease from picking at calamari beneath its unbroken, cleansing, fresh-scented surface. He's rubbing his hands together to keep them still – the new black pants Brian picked out for him aren't suitable for covert wiping, and Tim wouldn't take kindly to a demonstration of his error. Already this evening Brian has had to show him how to tie a tie and gingerly dipping his digits would be something of a red flag to a bull. _We're doing Italian, I guess. No, wait, that's Spain_. Either way. Tim has lifted the glass again, inspecting it with raised eyebrows.

“Why have they given it to me?”

“It's for cleaning your fingers.”

“Which isn't a problem for anyone who uses cutlery like a normal – hey! Don't laugh at me!”

“M'not.” Jay throws tables manners to the wind and braces one elbow on the table, pressing his mouth into his palm. As transparent as the lukewarm water in the offending bowl and blushing considerably redder. The setting comes recommended by Brian, who wished them better luck than he had on his date and whose logic, for once, can't be faulted. A violin concerto springs forth from speakers overhead, loud enough to drown out Tim's faux pas before it has time to take anyone's attention from the art of twirling spaghetti around forks and loving gazes.

The food might have something to do with their solitude, too, if the plates he and Tim ordered are anything to go by. Even the starters take up most of their small round table. Jay's stomach sinks when he turns back to his plate and there's little more than a smear of red oil left. Taste buds hibernating after years of microwave meals and dry snacks are waking up in the sun, chilli slices bursting on his tongue and swilling around with thick olive oil. Even the dressed salad dotted round the plate is crisp and aromatic and making his mouth water. When _was_ the last time he ate anything involving a preparation technique more complex than removing the wrapper and pressing buttons on a microwave? Tomato and oregano – always a jar sitting on the shelf of his childhood home, sometimes he'd smell it and drool over pizza - stir up memories of meals out with the family, ten or twelve of them gathered around a table. Perhaps he'll see it again. They'll have the joy of meeting Tim, who might evolve out of Neanderthal table manners by then.

“We didn't have finger food where I grew up, okay? You had your glass of watery orange juice and that was it.” He pushes the glass away with one finger, stirring the wilting lemon. “I think tonight's tipple was just about as flavoursome.”

Jay snorts, and Tim softens.

“Maybe it was a little bit funny. So, here we are. What do people usually do once they're on these things?”

“Um... eat, I guess. And talk.”

“We could've done that at home for much less money. I can think of at least three things we do really well for no money at all.”

“ _Really?_ ” Jay follows the grain of the wooden tabletop, reddening already without an advertisement of what they do in bed. The place is too small to offer much in the way of anonymity – barely space between tables for a waiter to pass by, let alone booths or partitions - though the dim lighting and moody candles seem to do the trick of keeping everyone's attention on the eyes across the table from them, and not the loud gays being gay loudly in the corner. It's not so unusual for two guys to have dinner together, is it? He was never invited by a friend before, but can't that be chalked up to his lack of friends? Then again, Tim held his chair for him and helped him out of his jacket. Only this morning so much as stroking his hair in front of Brian was positively pornographic next to the usual jolt if Jay's hand so much as brushes Tim's accidentally in public.

Jay lowers his glass to find a gaze with half-closed eyes waiting for him. “What?”

“What do you mean, what?”

“What are you staring at me for?”

“You have to ask?”

Jay pulls at the front of his shirt looking for spills, combs his hair for tufts, and Tim sighs.

“It's just that I haven't seen you like this before, in a good shirt and all. You look really nice.”

Brian bought him some new clothes with a little of the lawn-mowing money last week – for interviews, he said. Thrift store finds, but as good as new, to the point where the starched collar of his shirt rubs on his neck. He strokes his wrists, safely covered by the buttoned cuffs. Cornflower blue to bring out his eyes, apparently – like they weren't too big already. And yet something's working on Tim. He has a wicked gleam in his eyes exaggerated by the flame flickering between them. One lock of hair has fallen onto his forehead and unless he stares at the table for the rest of the evening Jay is going to need five minutes in the men's room when it's quiet. Undoubtedly reading his thoughts that way he always does, Tim leans in and whispers, gravelly and teasing.

“You look _gorgeous_.”

Everything looks a little maroon in the low lamplight, but the sudden rush of blood to Jay's face must have him glowing like a beacon. “You're getting spaghetti sauce all over your tie.”

Tim sits down with a huff and dabs at the red fabric with a napkin. “I don't understand these things. All they do is get in the way. It's like a tongue hanging around your neck and you guys just go along with it unquestioningly.”

Jay smiles, and before he knows it, he's tilted his head and his eyes are glazing over. It's Tim's turn to redden and look down at his food. Say what he will about the tie, he looks delicious in it, the crimson silk offsetting his black clothes. _He chose me_. And it takes Jay's breath away a little every time, not least how close he came to losing it. Dotted about the place are couples laughing together, taking bits from one another's plates, and is this the same whirlwind they feel about each other, too?

 _I hope so_. Everyone deserves the joyous butterflies he gets when Tim pushes his hair out of his eyes or casts a glance his way.

“So, what are we going to talk about?”

“Well, uh... how was your day, _dear?_ ”

 _Two can play at that game_. Tim presses his lips together to quell an emerging grin. “The same things happened that have happened every other day I've been there, and I was tired. It's almost as enthralling to talk about as it is to do it.”

“No entertaining customers?”

“Not particularly, although my supervisor still wants to know why he owes so much money to the Brazilian speaking clock. I told you about that, right?”

Jay nods and smirks. “I watched some terrible 70s detective shows and finished my sea thing.”

“You did? No, wait, that really is exciting.”

“I'm not sure about that. I have to go through it again to try and make it, you know, fit for human consumption, and try to think up a better title than 'Sea Thing'.”

“What do you think you'll do with it when you're done?”

 _Delete it, probably_. Who wants to read about cliffs for that long? There's a whole ten pages now, though in truth, it's not quite finished. He's got his shadow man away from the crumbling cliff, the ground more solid without his weight bearing down on it, only the winding road is still shrouded in fog and where he's backing away to refuses to be any clearer. Ambiguity wins literary points, of course, but it's hardly fair to leave this man, whose being helped Jay away from his own edge, stranded by the sea. There has to be a destination. Either way, the image is a striking one, or at least Jay would think so if he read it himself. There might be something to salvage.

“I don't know. Maybe I should put it online or something.” He chuckles. “Because that worked so well for me before.”

“It certainly got you attention,” says Tim, looking back and forth in furtive movements and biting his lip. But Jay catches his eye, and they smirk in unison.

“You've got to laugh,” says Jay, while fighting with some wayward salad making a bid for freedom on the tablecloth.

Tim reaches across to stroke Jay's fingers with his own – shorter, stronger, rougher. Jay tenses and checks the rest of the room, breathes, and entwines the hand with his own. His stomach drops with the idea that anyone could ever want him, and especially someone like Tim.

 _He's so brave_ . To see him sitting here in a shirt and tie paying for a meal with money he earns and looking the waiting staff in the eye and everything, after all that's happened... well, maybe there's hope for both of them. He retracts his hand and takes a sip of his drink – they're both on water. Tim can't drink with his medication, and pointedly took the wine list away from Jay as they sat down. At least no-one was looking. _I've got a handle on it, damn it_.

He's never been to a place like this with anyone but his parents, family gatherings usually accompanied by questioning about whether he was ever going to bring a girl along. If all Tim says about this part of the country is true, they might as well be waving rainbow scarves around instead of bringing their hands together again. Why not one glass of wine to take the edge off it?

 _Then again_. He rolls his eyes. Perhaps watching eyes are something he ought to get used to. Tomorrow is group therapy on Monday and he hasn't worked out a tactic. His stomach's heavy, and not only from eating more than he's become used to. It's not fair to let it occupy him now, not with Tim paying for the meal and treating him and sitting across from him looking so delectable... _but I can't help it_. He closes his eyes and the stares disappear. All he has to do is bullshit something about a stalker until they see he's talking, he's okay, and then he's free to try to do something about the rest of his life.

“Are you okay?”

“Just a little stiff is all,” he says, stretching his back for emphasis.

“That's kind of likely to happen when you're sleeping on a couch two-thirds the length of your body. We'll get our room taken care of soon, I promise. It's a good thing neither of us is very tall, right?”

They don't talk about it – the stains on the carpet, like a plague mark to ward them off trying to sleep in there. Not while the wounds at Jays wrists still catch on his clothes sometimes. He coughs and drains his glass. “I'm still taller than you.”

“And I can still punch you out,” says Tim. “Are you going to tell me what's up? I told you to try not to think about tomorrow until it's happening. Worked for me.”

“I'm sorry. It's not fair with you paying for all this.”

“Don't be sorry. Just try not to make it out to be a bigger deal than it is. They've diagnosed you now, right?”

“Major depressive disorder, generalised anxiety disorder with emphasis on social situations, post-traumatic stress disorder, alcohol dependence and related appetite problems.” He counts each one on his fingers. Staff walk past and he checks their faces for raised eyebrows or sneers, but on they go with the plates they're carrying. He drops Tim's hand and folds his arms.

“I know it's strange at first. But whatever they say you are, you're still Jay, alright? These labels, they're just there so the doctors know what to look for.”

“I know. Can we just talk about something else? I promise I'll put it out of mind.”

“Are you sure you're okay being out like this?” He drops his furrowed forehead into a guilty smirk. “In, uh, both senses of the word.”

“You're fussing again.” Jay reaches over and takes his hand. “I said I wanted to try being like a normal couple, didn't I? It's just new to me is all. Like everything else about being here.” He drops his eyes and Tim's shoes are still a little scuffed, even if he scrubs up pretty well otherwise. “You sure we can afford this?”

“I told you not to worry about it. Besides, if Brian's working as well now it's not going to be as tight as it was.”

“Did he seem a little off to you when he came home?”

“In what way?”

“I don't know, he was just kind of sad.”

“I think he's tired more than anything. Remember my first week back at work when I couldn't even form sentences a the end of the day?”

“I know, but he was so excited to have that job.”

“I'm sure he still is. I'm going to tell him you're fussing over him like this.”

“Fine.” Jay nibbles his lip. If Brian – easygoing, centre of attention hunk Brian can't do this, what hope does he have when the time to get a job rolls around?

“Seriously though, I'm pleased you're getting on better now.” Tim reaches over to stroke his fingers again. “When there's only two people in the world you really care about, it's tough to have them at odds with each other.”

“I wasn't fair to him. He's a good guy. I thought he was lying for a while about, you know, not remembering stuff, then I remembered he wasn't much of an actor.”

Tim laughs, then narrows his eyes. He stills his hand. “Is this making you uncomfortable? You only have to tell me.”

Jay retracts the hand and rubs it like he's injured. “I'm just not used to it in public.”

“It's like you can't remember some of the things we used to get up to in the woods.”

“Shut _up_.”

“That time on the fire escape...”

The heat from Jay's face could relight the candle flame if an incoming draft guttered it out. Tim's eyes smoulder. His plan for tonight is pretty obvious. A voice – the same slow, seductive one that drowns out Jay's writing muse with reminders of that one time in middle school he wrote about dragons picking off thinly disguised fictional reincarnations of playground bullies, to a hail of laughter – telling him all of this is nothing to do with making him feel at ease and everything to do with getting him back into bed. And the voice can go to hell, because if Tim was looking to get laid there are far simpler and far cheaper ways of doing it.

Jay should want it, too. They haven't fucked in... weeks. He should be craving it. Tim's skin against his, the warmth of him, the safety of holding another human being close to him, and those dark eyes boring into him. But letting go of himself, letting himself be desired, wanted, looked at – that's something else. A painful drunken mistake should not end up his last sexual experience, not when a beautiful man is offering everything he could want. He shakes himself. He'll be fine once they're away from judging eyes and alone with each other.

“This is getting ridiculous.” Tim cranes his head in the direction of the kitchen. “We ordered how long ago?”

“If you need to go smoke then just do it.”

Tim's hand slips into his jacket pocket. “You sure you're okay on your own? You can come out with me.”

“No, I'll be fine here. It won't look like we've run off that way.” Nothing new, after the nights they were down to quarters and complimentary hotel mints. But that's in the past. “What do you think would happen to me? Nothing worse than you being grumpy because you're craving a cigarette, that's for sure.”

“Remember who's paying,” Tim growls, but stroking Jay's head on his way past, stooping to whisper in his ear. “I'll be back in a couple minutes. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” he mouths, biting his lip. It's enough to make him wince when, as soon as Tim's out of the door, he's counting the loose change in his pocket and heading to the bar. One drink, just one and only to take the edge off his nerves, tomorrow and all the people watching. He drops his handful of change into the manicured hand of the bartender with a “Sorry, what can you do?” shrug. _Money's money_. He drops a tiny shot glass in front of him, the crystal liquid inside cold enough to frost the glass but burning as he tips it down his throat. The prickle smoothes into a soft, hazy glow inside him, though it troubles the contents of his full stomach, gurgling like those squid are still alive in there. And he still has one course more to go.

He steps back to his seat less hunched than before but slipping slightly as he sits. It's just one drink. Sure, he was stupid with it for a while, but he's learned his lesson. He's smiling more already, though Brian coming home with skittish eyes and slumped shoulders from a place like this weighs on him. He's got to try to fill out a resume soon, think of more lies, and -

And their mains arrive just in time. He catches Tim coming back in the corner of his eye and stuffs chicken and olives into his maw to mask the paint stripper hint of the vodka.

“Starting without me? So rude.”

“We waited long enough. I'm sorry.”

“You know I'm just glad you're eating again, right? I'm so proud of you.”

 _Would he still be saying that if he'd caught you at the bar?_ Jay drops his head and prays Tim takes his reddened face as flattery.

And the rest of the evening drifts by as lazily as the gently strummed guitars playing over the speakers, as the wispy curls of smoke from the candle flame. They finish their plates slowly, Tim taking time out to talk about some of the people he met when he went away, Jay telling him all about the last time he was in a real restaurant and the incident with the chilli oil, smiling at an elderly couple still feeding each other morsels like teenagers. Jay peers over at Tim's plate of oysters. “Mind if I try one of those?”

Tim nudges the plate his way. “Go ahead.”

Jay lifts one barnacled shell and raises it to his mouth, the growths rough on his lips. He tips it, eyes closed, and his mouth fills with salt water and something glutinous.

He wrinkles his nose. “It's like... someone just came in my mouth.”

Tim glass his glass down mid-sip, choking. “Did you just say what I think you said?”

He raises his voice - “I said it's like someone just came in my mouth!” - with impeccable timing, as there's a gap in the music. Heads turn in his direction and blood rushes to his own.

His jaw drops. Tim takes the plate back, looking at it as he might a platter of steaming gristle. “Okay. Are you bothered about dessert?”

Jay shakes his head and throws down his napkin. In the car on the way home coloured lights pass overhead, clearer than they ever were through the lens of a camera. So much to explore – all of these shops and bars he enjoyed walking past when he was adrift on a path all his own. Tim's looking out of the window, too, his dark profile nothing less than perfect in the soft glow of downtown night. Maybe they can do it together. And the glow doesn't fade until they're back home, with the door shut and Tim grinding him into the wall.

Strong hands wander all the ridges of his spine as full lips drift over neck and shoulders, bodies rocking together and Jay stood with bent knees like he used to, to be the shorter person protected and cherished. Only his hands are loosely linked behind Tim's back and he's stock still. Two men are embracing in the mirror across the hall. One of them is him. The other man is nudging around his throat, sucking on his skin, kneading his back and groaning. Perhaps Tim supposes the muffled sounds he makes are moans of pleasure, but in truth he's fighting not to laugh. _How silly_. So much noise for nothing.

“I want you,” he breathes into Jay's ear, licking the soft skin underneath.

Jay blinks. _Do you?_ “... Brian?”

Tim's hand falls to rub between his legs. “He'll know. He'll stay in his room. Couch, now.”

And Jay follows, and he's pushed down onto the cushions with a warm weight on top of him. Tim moves to unbutton his shirt, then changes his mind and goes right for his belt, pulling his pants down to mid-thigh. He tugs at Jay's tie, enough to open the first button for access to his neck. Jay places his hands firm on strong arms – Tim's sit on his waist. He's pushed back onto the cushions with a familiar body settling on top of him. But Tim is too heavy and his chest, short of breath, is crushed. Under the kisses his throat's raw and dry, like it was from crying, that other time. And he's numb. Like he was when he went to a stranger's home full of drink and let him...

“... Don't.”

Jay winces, closing his eyes and waiting for some sigh, some signal of disappointment. The weight on top of him shifts and chill air takes its place. He wraps his arms around himself for a night alone, until a hand comes down to cup his face, thumbing his cheek, willing him to open his eyes.

“Are you alright?”

“I'm so sorry.”

“What is it you're sorry for? _I'm_ sorry. Was I too rough?” Tim pulls him up until he's sitting and gingerly lays one arm on his back. “Is this okay?”

Jay nestles into him, swallowing to keep back a sob.

“Please don't be sorry, Jay.” He strokes his hair and kisses the top of his head. “Why do you think I'd want to do anything if you weren't into it?”

“I _should_ be, though.”

“That's not how it works.”

What was it they were saying about honesty last night? “It's just that the last time I tried wasn't so great.” He falls limp and waits for Tim to pull away, and he shouldn't even be bringing it up, but it's better than letting Tim think he's done wrong.

Instead, Tim pulls him closer and strokes his spine through the shirt in a gesture more expressive than his clumsy attempt at seduction. And now Jay really _is_ going to cry. “It's never been like that with you. You're... kind of amazing, actually. I just keep thinking how much it hurt.”

“You're fine, okay? I can wait 'til you're ready.”

Jay lies back and pulls at the edge of the blanket. “What if I'm always going to feel like this?”

“Well, I managed without a sex life well enough for so many years, I think I can go a few more. Jay... do you know how happy I was to sit across from you at that table and see you smiling all night? I just want you to be happy.”

“I was, back there. Thank you for taking me out.”

“That's all that matters to me.”

He lifts Tim's hand and kisses the knuckles softly. “Will you still stay with me?”

By way of answer, Tim shrugs himself out of his shirt and wriggles his pants off. Two sets of formal attire lie with limbs at odd angles on the floor, and Jay presses his back against Tim's chest, relishing the heat. When he rains kisses on his neck and shoulders, it's more soothing than seductive. The movement of his lips softens to quiet snores, and the last of the lights goes out along the street, and Jay could die happy, warm and safe like this.

Only he doesn't. His neck is bent at an odd angle, pressing his face into the hard cushion enough for it to pulse. He can't toss and turn so much with Tim sleeping beside him and barely enough space for one. He inches out from beneath the covers, Tim's arm dropping. He doesn't stir. _This is new_. Not so long ago it only took a car door slamming outside to wake him up screaming. Jay readjusts the blanket around him and pads over to the sink, side-stepping the mosaic of scrap silicon on the floor second nature to the point he's only aware of doing it when his feet emerge unscathed on the other side.

Brian's snoring loud enough to hear from along the hall. Nonetheless he turns the faucet as quiet as he can, reaching up for a glass and wincing as the cupboard door creaks. He's scrabbling around for a small tumbler, knocking them together with a quiet musical ring, when his hand strays to a bottle.

He lifts it down onto the counter, with one of the smaller glasses lodged behind it following. He squints at the peeling label in the dark. It's a two-thirds full bottle of vodka he hid some weeks ago.

Jay gulps his water and hurries into the bathroom, cradling the bottle and locking the door behind him. This shit almost cost him Tim, his home, the very blood in his veins, so it seems fitting revenge to just tip it down the toilet now. He unscrews the top and the room reeks like a gin mill in seconds.

Slamming his hand over the neck, he turns to and fro, as though it's going to make the smell evaporate. He could switch on the fan, but he might wake the other two, and they'd do what they do and panic and never believe he was about to pour it away. There are none of the scented candles his mother littered around the house – and even if there were he'd need a reason for lighting them up at two in the morning. He could say he woke up after a nightmare, drenched, and didn't want to sleep sweating next to Tim. The coconut shower stuff Brian buys in would mask it.

Except the smell's fading already, and showering would wake him up even more. He sloshes the liquid in the bottle, and it's a soothing whisper like the sea. When he was drinking it every day, he only had to put his head on a pillow and his eyes fell in seconds. It's been a while. He could just take a sip, a mouthful, and it'd knock him right out. He could brush his teeth while it was taking effect and fall asleep next to Tim – in fact, he'd be doing him a favour, because if he sleeps soundly Tim won't worry about him having nightmares.

Promises about honesty? He shakes his head. Tim would understand, just as Jay learned to understand about the... the last tape Tim hid. With her scream and her wild hair flashing before him Jay opens the bottle and raises it to his lips, quick, before the smell can give him away. His mouth is on fire, and then his throat, until it settles in his stomach and his limbs tingle. He breathes out and swills mouthwash until the taste is gone and the bathroom smells of clean, safe mint instead. He slips back into the hall, and takes a detour into their bedroom first. The bottle finds a new home under the bed. He'll throw it out tomorrow, when no-one's looking. Definitely tomorrow.

 


	23. Variation

_“I think it's dark and it looks like rain," you said_  
 _"And the wind is blowing like it's the end of the world," you said_  
 _“And it's so cold, it's like the cold if you were dead"_  
 _And then you smiled for a second_  
 _"I think I'm old and I'm in pain," you said_  
 _"And it's all running out like it's the end of the world," you said_  
 _“And it's so cold it's like the cold if you were dead,"_  
 _And then you smiled for a second_  
\- The Cure

  
Tim winces as the door squeals on its ageing hinge, piercing the calm white quiet he steps into. With the grace and unity of synchronised swimmers, a circle of heads snap in his direction. He stops, small steps hushing the echo of his footfalls to keep the group's focus on the skinny girl speaking in their centre. To look at her you wouldn't believe those bird legs could even hold her body upright, but stand she does, smiling and looking the others right in the face. Her red outfit is the only colour in the room, lines and circles painted on an old wood floor hints to previous life as a gym. A line of narrow windows near the ceiling and white walls unblemished all the way up. The place echoes, every whispered word reverberating. What a place to bring people to say what they don't want to say – ten or twelve of them, all with arms wrapped around themselves and eyes following their own gravitational pull down to the floor.

The coiled wire head of Dr. Moreno, seated amongst the others, winks as she looks his way. She's waving him over, even as the slender girl continues to talk. Tim pauses. It's noon – Jay said they'd be done by now, but on the speaker goes. _Is this something I should just wander in on?_ Dr. Moreno lifts an eyebrow. _I guess that's a yes_.

Jay is sat next to her and only lifts his capped head from the ground when he's nudged. A wide-eyed toothy smile appears on his face – the same kind of smile creeping over Tim's. This is fucking ridiculous. Their faces could've been lifted straight from any number of cheesy romantic comedies, Jay turning his head up in slow motion as Tim pads across the floor, the rest of the world in soft focus and maybe some Celine Dion to drown out the shaky discussion of disordered eating. It's nauseating. And damn it, why does the whole blushing and butterflies-in-stomach thing always seem to happen when he's in a no smoking area? Any more of it and he'll need a much bigger bucket than the one housing a mop in the corner of the room.

At the same time. _Who else has ever been so pleased to see me?_ This is being in love, Tim Wright being in love, even if this squeaky gym floor is hardly walking on sunshine. Going through a dull day knowing smiles and cheek kisses and stupid jokes whispered over pillows wait for you at the end of it – a new realm that exists not in rosy replacement of day to day doldrum, but as an aside, a glimpse of high life in Jay wearing one of his shirts. _I'm Tim Wright and I've been out on a real date_.

He takes one of the plastic chairs stacked behind the gathering and puts it down outside the circle, close enough to whisper to Jay but not so close they'll attract questions. The girl standing in the middle is still talking but Jay's so near, near enough to reach out and take his hand or stroke his hair for comfort. _What's a normal level of public affection? How much does he want these people to know?_ All these eyes on him, all at once - Jay must have been counting the minutes all this time. Tim was seconds from calling out of work after the incident this morning, but there's nothing about Jay's straight back now to suggest he was screaming on the floor a few hours ago. In fact, he's looking right at the speaker and... _is he actually listening?_

“Thank you, Claire,” says Doctor Moreno as the girl takes her seat, in between two others who lean in and pat her on the back. “We're running a little over time here, but unless you have somewhere else to be, feel free to stay. Who's up next?”

A man with a goatee across from them starts rustling papers while everyone else whispers among themselves like trees in the wind. The trees outside his window, back in the hospital, the closest thing to words he'd hear for days. It's been a while since Tim was obliged to sit in on one of these things, but he's getting the same knot in his stomach just waiting for everyone else to have their turn to speak. He checks his phone; his lunch hour's running out, and only nicotine vapour has passed his lips since breakfast.

What must it have been like for Jay this whole time? He leans forward, brushing slightly at the skin of his neck. “You're okay?”

Jay certainly wasn't anticipating being okay before Tim left for work this morning. “Having a panic attack” is a brief collection of harsh, blunt syllables that do nothing to convey what it's like to watch the man you love cry on the floor, wailing that he can't do it, he doesn't deserve the time, the pounding of his terrified heart is going to kill him. And Tim could only stand idle as Brian swooped in with a paper bag for Jay to breathe into, gripping him by the shoulders - _it's just adrenaline, chemistry gone wrong, all he has to do is ride it out_. And, within a minute or so, some colour crept back into Jay's face and he got to his feet by himself.

Brian shrugged, told Tim he did some research about panic attacks while he was taking care of Jay, and it's nothing. He went back to his cereal like nothing had happened, expecting no medal, no praise, not even thanks. Like he was only doing his job.

Jay turns to him now with wide eyes and a smile. “It's fine. How come you're here?” He laughs and pushes his hair from his eyes. “I didn't mean it like that!”

“I get what you meant. I just thought I'd surprise you. I'll give you a ride home, and maybe we could have lunch together?”

“You're not going to make yourself late, are you?”

“It's fine,” he says, and before he can say more, Dr. Moreno coughs quietly and lets the young man with the scraps of coffee-stained notepaper take the floor.

Jay hasn't said too much about his psych ward adventures, though outside of a Word document he's never one for long storytelling - he offers snatches when a song he heard on the radio reminds him of high school, or the smell of instant coffee takes him back to a family vacation. However, this new speaker can only be Carl the Poet. From what Jay says you'd think he deliberately dipped his notes in old coffee for aesthetic reasons and his mumbling was affected, too.

He clears his throat and begins, half-closing his eyes. “ _All of existence is a dishwasher_.”

Tim checks the time again. He has half an hour left to get Jay home, eat something, and head back to work. And... there's a text from Ren. A shiver shoots up his spine – _I thought she only asked for the number because she felt she should, I never thought she'd_ – but what does she have to say that can't wait until their next shift together? _The hell? She's not even at work today_. Half-hiding the phone behind his hand, he reads in her rasping, sing-song voice. _“Need you to call me once you get done today re: Nate. They won't tell you anything”_.

Tim catches his breath – no-one else heard. _Good_. This is no time to worry Jay. What the hell has he done she can't say now, that she felt the need to text _Tim_ of all people to begin with?

“ _Autotuned vomit sprayed all up the palace walls – foot! Beauty hates everyone.”_

And this nonsense isn't helping. _What's the therapeutic point of this? Other than making all the others see that at least they're not bashing out this garbage and passing it off as art?_ Tim shakes his head. Half an hour with Jay to himself, but no, he can't even have that. Always some mystery to go and solve. He sighs. _At least you have Jay at all_. Amazing. Tim the loner ends up head over heels gay for that film guy who fell over his own laces and dropped a camera if you so much as looked at him. He smiles behind his hand. Why's that so hard to believe, against all the other weird shit they've been through together? _Kind, quiet people who don't need much but themselves. Don't underrate them_.

“ _A field of godless, heathen potatoes,”_ Carl bellows to his audience with a flourish of his upturned free hand.

 _Case in point_. Tim battles to keep the muscles trying to quirk his eyebrow and tugs on Jay's sleeve. “You know, I'm not too well-read, but I'm at least ninety-five percent certain Sea Thing is better than this.”

“What did I ever do to lose the other five percent?”

There's a sharp whisper to his left. “All creative work should be cherished.” Dr. Moreno is glaring right at him as he sits back, but her lips are pressing together on purpose. All around the circle are hands covering mouths, shining eyes, and heads turned to windows. Tim settles back into his seat and watches Carl strut dandy-like from one side of the circle to the other. His eyes are rapt on the paper he reads from, and his free hand performs little rotations – like Jay's does, when he pauses from typing to find the right words amidst the flurry of ideas around him. He has the same fervour in his eyes under raised brows, too. Let him have his moment with a curl of laughing lips in the corner of his eye. If this is doing for him half what it does for Jay, let him loose. _Each to their own_. He's on the last sheet of paper, anyway – that particular artful coffee stain looks familiar.

“ _Ubiquitous, copacetic, ectoplasmic... and_ funky.”He finishes with a sweeping bow, and drops back into his chair.

“And thank you so much, Carl, for pouring your heart out like that for us,” says Dr. Moreno. “And I believe the last person we're going to hear from is Jay. Want to tell us what you've been up to since we all saw you last?”

Jay clears his throat and the sound rings around the room – reverberating as much for Tim as it must for Jay. Impulse says to reach out and take his hand, or at least his shoulder, but Tim checks himself. Jay knows just where he is. If he needs the comfort of fingers touching him, he'll take it himself.

He stutters, flinching from the hollow ring of even this slight noise around the hall. “Well, uh... I don't really know what to tell you. I can't say I've done a whole lot this last couple weeks, but in light of what I was doing before, I guess that doesn't have to be a bad thing.”

Dr. Moreno smiles. “So what is it that's changed?”

“I'm not drinking now, not at all. And I've been eating more. I even went out for dinner last night. With the guy I was seeing. Am seeing. Thank God. We patched things up.”

There's thunderous applause all over the room and Jay's ears are reddening – _thank you Jesus Christ that my complexion doesn't lend itself so well to blushing._

“And I guess I'm happy. For now. That's something.” Peering over his shoulder, Jay's toying with a loose string on his hoodie, but he stops. He takes a deep breath in and straightens his back. “I've decided I don't want to be the kind of person people feel sorry for anymore.”

_Can't I just kiss you right here?_

“Well done, Jay, and thank you for sharing. And I think Jay is a good example to us all right now – celebrate your little victories, even if it's something someone else would just take for granted. Now, what's the time? Alright, gang, it's past time we wrapped this one up. I'll be seeing most of you again next week, I hope.”

A dozen chairs scrape in unison. Ambling, they all file out, Jay hanging back a little until the doorway is clear. Tim's a picture of stoicism until they reach the parking lot and long fingers brush his hand. He turns back to the foyer of the hospital, his own frowning reflection looking back at him. Was it really only a month ago they arrived here drenched in blood, stumbling around in the dark? The sun at its highest point picks out the green flecks in Jay's eyes, lit up by his smile. He's still in long sleeves that fall over his wrists, but his hand fits around Tim's just the same.

“She's right, you know,” he says, dropping Jay's hand for a moment to find his keys. Once they're seated he strokes his knee, lighting up for the ride home. “Really. Little victories. It's okay to be proud of yourself for a while.”

“That's what Brian said. He already gave me the pep talk this morning.”

Tim turns the key and nods. “I'd listen to him. I know he's not the most tactful person ever but he talks sense, occasionally. I wouldn't have even the half the confidence I do if it wasn't for him.”

He shifts in his seat. “It's not like I've really done anything, though.”

“You said yourself, that might not be a bad thing.”

“I get it, I really do, and thank you for saying so, but can we just drop it? Today went a lot better than I thought it would, but I really don't want to think too much about it.”

“I don't blame you.” Tim cranes his neck as he backs out, the glass front blinding in low sunlight. “You thinking of going back?”

“Probably. Even if I don't talk so much. Like, they can't make me better, but it's one way of getting out the house, right?”

“It'll be good for you just to talk to people who aren't me or Brian.”

“I hope so. I just feel kind of... drained. Tired. Sort of hollow...”

It hits them both in unison; “... and _funky!_ ”

“What the hell was that in there?” says Tim, shaking his head.

“I don't know,” says Jay. “But whatever it was, we got through it together.”

They slam the car doors and a flock of birds flutters from the trees, a brief burst of song announcing their arrival. On the way into the house Tim drapes one arm over Jay's shoulders. Cloistered by trees, he nestles in until they're inside and about to negotiate their way around the remnants of the worst days of their lives still scattered across the floor.

 _Or not_.

“Surprise,” says Jay. “I went through all the CD cases as I went and I was going to download them all for you, but I ran out of time.”

The sun streaming in through the gap in the curtains shines not on a glacial spread of splintered silicon, but on the carpet - worn and faintly dusty, but the carpet all the same. The crumbs of porcelain and glass beading the fabric this morning have been swept away, and the CD rack is a little dented but upright and sturdy.

Tim's mouth hangs open - he darts across the room for an ashtray just in time before a growing pile of ash spoils Jay's hard work. “You've done this? Just this morning?”

“Brian's still in bed, so, yeah. I think he needs a break after his first day.” Jay flops onto the couch and kicks off his sneakers, battered old things with untied laces. “I know it doesn't change the fact that any of that happened to begin with. Saying I'm sorry isn't much good either.”

Tim kneels down in front of him and cups a hand in both of his. “It's behind us now, though, right? Thank you for doing this. The best thing you can do to put it right is to not go back there again, okay?”

“I won't.”

“I believe you. Now, I'll go and make us something to eat?”

Jay laughs. “Know what the best part is? I feel hungry.”

Tim kisses the hand he's holding and leads Jay over to the kitchen, where he's in and out of the fridge fetching condiments. “What are you doing with the rest of the day?” he asks, folding ham over thickly buttered bread.

Jay shrugs, unscrewing the mustard. “Take another look at Sea Thing and then, I don't know. I'm on kind of a roll now. Maybe I could look at jobs or something.”

“Only if it's not too much stress for you. If Brian's working now we can get by.”

“I can still look. Thank you for picking me up today.”

“It's a long way to walk, and you still need to rest up. I don't think I could come back here for lunch every day, but I'll drive you home on Mondays.”

They take their plates to the couch, Jay labouring over each mouthful, but he gets there and stacks his plate on top of Tim's. He falls against him and nuzzles his neck. “How long until you have to leave?”

“I've got about ten minutes. I should get up and clean the plates.”

“I'll do it.” Jay puts one arm across his torso, like he's holding Tim in place, and he laughs lightly. “Is this normal?”

“Is what normal?”

“Everything being so easy.”

“I wouldn't know.” He brushes the last crumbs off his fingers and combs through Jay's hair. “But there's no reason it can't stay like this. None at all.”

“Do you... Did it work, do you think?”

A tremor glitches Jay's voice, and Tim tilts his head to check him. “Did what work?”

“You _know_. Back at the college. Did we get rid of it?”

He sighs, and even the cars outside the window fall quiet. “I don't think any of us are ever going to know for sure. I know that's tough to come to terms with, but as I see it, it's not all that different to having a mental illness. I'll never know if I'm better or if I've got a relapse around the corner. But if we let it ruin the rest of our lives, either way, we lose. Right?”

Jay bites his lip, then nods. “Right.”

And they stay curled up, because why would they want to do anything else? Tim doesn't move but to kiss the top of his head, hair warmed by the sun. The only sound is birds outside the window, tapping against the glass once or twice, but this is their space. It's like clearing the detritus of Jay's meltdown has cleared a path for them to the kind of life he always wanted, sunlight dappled by the trees like light on a clear ocean.

 _Is_ it normal to need nothing but each other like this? Because it should be.

The clock takes no pity on them and keeps on moving until it's time to get back in the car. Jay pecks his cheek before he closes the door, and Tim keeps touching the spot on his journey, when he's stuck behind the register on a dead afternoon. Where are the usual crowds coming in for ice cream and sodas on a hot day? There's hardly any point being here at all, with every second making itself known and the warmth of Jay's body stuck to his side like a phantom limb. Tim toys with an abandoned receipt, folding it this way and that into a boat shape before rolling it up and flicking it from one end of the counter to the other until it's lost to the mound of chips in front of him. His new coping mechanism for listening to Top Forty radio all day is to analyse a song and determine what he'd change about it, if he was the one at the helm of the creation. Usually, it's the beat. And the lyrics. And the voice.

Not that any of this brings home time closer. Stuck in his jacket pocket in the staff room is his phone, and Ren's number. He could slip away for five minutes and Jean at the register would still be trying to fit a three-letter synonym for 'feline' into her crossword puzzle, but Sod's Law says the moment he leaves the thing alone the bell will go and he'll be in for some kind of reprimand for slacking off and fucking around with his phone.

 _What is it, though?_ “They won't tell you anything” - this couldn't be any less clear if she wrote it in a typewriter font and shoved it on Youtube. Tim shakes his head. He paces until the bead curtains twitch and Jean – a lady perhaps twice his age who's still twice as quick on her feet, and the only person who could get away with telling Nate where he could stick that frown turned upside-down – beckons him.

“You might want to find a seat. It's bad news, son,” she whispers, probably because she can't remember his name. “I'll get right to it. Nate is... not able to be here right now, so it's up to me to break it, but basically he's lost the shop and we're under new management soon.”

Tim takes a long drag on an imaginary cigarette. “Thank you for being straight with me. Do we know what this means for us?”

“I'll keep you posted, but given the circumstance I'm not sure if the new owners will want a full replacement of staff or not.” She clears her throat, like she's gone too far. “I just wanted to let you know so you can start looking, just in case.”

Tim nods, trying to hold a steady rhythm with the thumping of his heart. “Thank you, again. Uh... Do you mind if I...?” He gestures towards the door to the alcove all the staff smoke under. What _circumstance_ is she on about?

She straightens herself and forces a smile. “You'll be fine if you keep that handsome face of yours,” she says, stroking a sideburn with a wink. Tim blinks a couple times. Between her and Jay's doctor he'll end up with his own calendar. _Come on, Casanova, go work out how you're going to keep eating first_. He opens the door and lets the sandstone wall catch his weight. Lighting up takes three tries, his hands shaking – before attempting anything with the expensive phone he'll soon have no money to replace, he breathes deep and let the nicotine crawl around a cooling trail.

A navy sky is painted with clouds in pink and gold as the sun sinks, flaring in the gap between the bank building and the public restroom opposite. _I'm going to miss this?_ Why not? It's something that he managed to reach an equilibrium where awful music and awkward customers could provide enough entertainment to get him through the day, and he made one friend out of it. Will they still be friends when they don't see each other every day? Only one way to know.

He picks out Ren's number from all of five contacts he has in his phone. Will she notice his heavy breathing as he picks up? He sucks in slow through his nose to calm it, which only makes the compression around his lungs tighter.

“Hey, this is Ren.”

“It's Tim.”

“Give me two minutes, I've got oil paint all up my arms.”

 _Of course you do_ . There's a scrabbling sound of the phone being placed on some table and a vague dance beat in the background. She'll find another job no problem. He, on the other hand... if _Brian_ of all people struggled so much - _no_ . This isn't helping. Brian might have charm bouncing off his impressive chest but Tim's the one who finished college, who's worked sort of consistently over the years. _You have as much chance as anyone_.

“Okay, I'm done. How much has Jean told you?”

“That Nate's having some sort of trouble, the shop's getting new management, and we're getting new jobs.”

“Sounds pretty suspicious, right?”

Tim shrugs – _oh, wait. She can't see_. “Uh, I guess so.” Of course she'll be on the trail of whatever trouble Nate is having, but what does it matter? What's happening with him makes no difference to the fact that Tim is supporting three people on barely enough money for one, and even that's going to be taken away. He paces. _Cut the drama_.

“You're not going to believe this, but I spoke to a few people, and as far as I can tell the fucking shop was a laundering business.”

Tim drops to his knees on the pavement. Shaking like a leaf, snorting like a bull. His lungs going like bellows, no other sound. Possible collusion in criminal activity might very well make all the difference to him. Particularly with his medical records and the disappearance of local man Alex Kralie still on the periphery of the town news. There's a gun with his fingerprints lodged in the bottom of the river somewhere. There's whatever the hell stunts Jay pulled to support himself before Tim showed up. There's all the breaking and entering Brian did for years.

He bites his lip. “How likely is it they'll want to question us?”

“I couldn't tell you. It's not like I find out every day I've been unwillingly assisting in a drugs operation. It makes sense for him to keep his employees in the dark, and you'd hope he has enough honour to keep all of us out of it, but this is Nate we're talking about and I thought he was a slimeball even before all of this.”

“Agreed. Look, I'd better had back in and get this shift over with. Thanks for letting me know, I guess.”

“Of course. You're one of the good ones, Tim, and you don't need this. Especially since you're not just supporting yourself.”

“Well, Brian's working now, so I guess that's something.”

“That's great news! What's he doing?”

“Bartending.”

“Sweet. If he goes in with his charm you guys will be rolling in it from all his tips.” She pauses, and speaks more softly then he's ever heard. “Tell him I was asking, yeah?”

“Will do.”

“Now go get your shift out of the way and I'll see you later, okay?”

“Sure. Take care of yourself.”

She rings off and Tim's alone with the deepening shadows and a chill wind blowing up from nowhere. He's still shivering when he's in the car and breaking the news to Brian and Jay creeps ever closer. From the driveway, the living room light spills warm orange into the blue cloaking the house. There they are, through the window. They're on the couch and staring presumably at the TV, Brian sprawled in a corner and Jay wrapped from the waist down in a blanket. They're not talking, but they smile together, and Tim's shoulders loosen a little. _We've gotten through worse_.

Through a crack in the open door, Jay lifts his head when he hears the front door slam. There it is, another sickening smile on Tim's face as he strips off his jacket and lands himself between them on the couch. Brian leans forward from the right angle he's poured himself into to offer a bowl of chips with a promising red dusting on them. Tim takes a handful and sits back for the first time today.

“I'm doing dinner once this is finished,” says Brian. “Pasta okay for everyone?”

“It'll have to be,” Tim sighs.

Jay's hand brushes over his, and in spite of everything, his chest flutters. “You okay?”

 _If Jean can come right out and say it, so can you_. “I guess I don't know for sure, but it looks like I'm going to be looking for a new job.”

Brian jolts and switches the TV off. “What the hell did you do? From all I can see you've been the best employee they could've asked for.”

“Well, maybe that's not enough when your boss gets taken in for laundering. You couldn't make it up. Look, don't panic. I'm going to send out applications tomorrow and I'll call the hospital to see what we can do about the bill.”

“Don't worry about it.”

“Brian, I can't ask -”

“You're not asking. I'm telling. It's the least I can do after you've put up with me for this long. Jesus, Tim, most people wouldn't have even looked at me after everything that happened, you know, before. Besides. He's my friend, too.”

Jay's quiet and pressing a corner of the blanket to his mouth. Tim touches his hand again;, he isn't a burden, he isn't a problem, they both want him well.

Brian's on his feet, stretching, and walking towards the kitchen. “We got through worse when we at each other's throats, right? We can deal with this as friends. Now, let's hear more about this laundering ring you've been in cahoots with. I haven't heard a good story in a while.”

 


	24. Chant

_You've fallen once, you'll fall again, and lean on  
Your tired hands that crawl and grasp the soft ground  
_ _And every stone and every step, I won't recall  
_ _Emptied out of every thought, just soft ground  
_ _By the look on your face you set out on a path, never to arrive  
_ _By the look on your face, the burden's on your back and the sun is in your eyes  
_ _Stretched out, far and wide, the light that scorched the sand  
_ _So bright, so long, I'm never coming back_  
\- Grizzly Bear

  
Looming over his chair with her hands on her hips, Laurel steeples her hands and her green eyes bore through him, blinking to the echo of the ticking clock. “Look, you're clearly having some problems and I'd hate to make whatever's going on worse, but this has happened twice in your first week.”

Brian nods, because if he opens his mouth, he won't be able to close it again. She purses her lips, keeping quiet in anticipation of a response, but what is there to say? His left leg is shaking, so bad it rocks the table, even with both elbows pressing into his thigh. He wipes a trail from his nose with the back of his hand. It's not like he has any dignity left after Laurel walked into the staff room to find him spread-eagled and sobbing on the floor again.

 _Do I think I'm too good for this job?_ That's basically what this disciplinary comes down to. It's a stop-gap. _Fine_. But en route to what? He's here with no clearer direction to run in than the spilled coffee he's just been clearing up.

The day didn't start _too_ badly. _Right?_ As close to normal as anything ever gets for him, until lunch hour rolled around. Laurel bent at the waist laughing and threw herself up, red hair splaying, tears in her eyes. “Oh God, that's the best thing I've heard in a long time. So what happened then?”

“Well, I rinsed my mouth, like, five times and told them not to leave it next to the toothpaste anymore.” He turned red, but not as red as Laurel, still spluttering beside him and blowing vapour through her nose as she tried to smoke. If the first memory she makes of him involves ingesting lubricant, well, so be it. But his new friend, the heaviness in his chest, sits in again - if only he had other stories. Life since the college incident has been watching TV and filling in as relationship councillor with nothing much to say.

Fall is finally making itself known with moody grey skies and tides of fallen leaves swirling around the parking lot, and the coffee he sipped steaming in front of him. Still, business is business and cloudy days send them rushing in for pumpkin spice lattes. All week he's flung himself to and fro from the kitchen, plates balanced on his arm, and no-one gives him so much as an odd look. Sure, there were a couple incidents of confusing orders when the pace got too much for him, and that time the _Death of a Salesman_ actors made a return visit and the twist in his stomach made him drop the seafood platter he was carrying, but it's gone okay for a first week at a bunch of simple tasks.

 _Do I think I'm too good for this job?_ _I've never been a_ snob. He's the son of a carpenter and a long-time cafeteria server who knitted bobble hats in her spare time. They bought a big house cheap in the middle of nowhere and furnished it with the strangest things they could find in thrift stores and garage sales. There's no status to boast of there. Service work is good enough for his mother, so why not him?

If only he could pass some of the workload onto Tim, who's been tearing his pretty hair out in front of his laptop looking for another option. For money, for something to do - even back in college he worked in one of the nearby convenience stores on top of every credit hour God sent. In the present, there's Jay's medical bill. The number they don't speak typed in even letters along the bottom, bold and clear and doing nothing to reflect the panicked looks they pass between one another at the thought of it. Paying it is the least he could do for Tim. The silence of the near-empty lot out back with his audience of dead leaves laughs at him. What would it be like to have something else to spend his money on?

 _His money_. If he even has money to call his own after today. Laurel doesn't exactly look beneficial with her knitted brows and tap-tapping of long fuchsia nails on the desk. Words are jamming up in his head, about how it won't happen again or how the broken crockery can come out of his wages, but his throat is too tight and dry to voice them.

 _Do I think I'm too good for this job?_ He could laugh. He's evidently not good enough _at_ it.

“And I can see this is a bad time for you, but when I have members of staff who leave in the middle of taking an order I can't be expected to just say nothing, can I?”

The tears started when he was on the phone to home. His mother's voice and all the reminders of his guilt and lies it carries. A few seconds later and he'd have missed the song alerting him to the call - _“It's just a shot away”_ \- and returned it in his own time, when he was ready, when he could deal. But he answered, told her he was at work and his own voice took the tone it would when he came home with a sports certificate. The bunsen flame of pride turned to ash before he finished. He's twenty-six, almost – he should be calling her to tell her about the show he's playing or the role he's been called back for or some business deal he's struck, not shift work in a bar with a pun for a name.

And it's kind of hard to summon up any enthusiasm for your job once you've told yourself that. He went from one table to the next, not exactly kicking his heels but shuffling a little, and straining his smile. By then it was lunchtime, so the place was full of families and he couldn't even flirt with anyone tips. The clock takes its sweet time, but hey, he's got a whole life of this ahead of him.

 _Do I think I'm too good for this job?_   The staff room is a little more polished than it was during his interview, a few more paintings of scenes around the town, and the walls glare back blankly. Some girl said to him in college it wasn't often you felt someone's good looks were going to waste, but his would if he didn't make it into the public eye somehow. He snorts. _Waste_ is apt for his shriveled frame, his pigeon chest, his thinning hair. But what could she know about waste, when she's never woken up to find seven years completely missing?

“I'm already wasting more time in here,” says Laurel. “What's going on?”

 _You tell me?_ The panic doesn't come with a four minute warning, or even a knock on the door. That's the nature of the thing. One moment he was leaning down slightly to check out the toy train the little boy wanted to show him, the next he heard breaking glass from the kitchen that at long distance could've almost been a gunshot and had to run into the back room before his snot and tears ended up seasoning the family's soups. _It's our specialty – the tears of a fuck-up. Really gives it a kick. A bitter aftertaste_.

“Brian, are you even listening to me?”

 _Do I think I'm too good for this job? To answer her?_ Of course not. But opening his heavy jaw... He used up the energy he had for feigning social competence on his lunch break. He made her laugh. But it's going to take more than a deceptive lube tube to save his job.

He coughs. “I'm sorry. I'm here.” _I'm sorry I'm here_. “It just, it's going to take me a minute to... come down.”

His parents are visiting at the weekend, with Grace. He's still got running news of a child invading his inner sanctum by Tim to look forward to. And he bites back laughter – sure, that's going to be the real problem now they're three unemployed people trying to take care of each other. If Tim loses his job as well... _they were relying on me_. Jay's bill to pay, the house, all of it up in the air because he couldn't keep a handle on himself for five Goddamn minutes to finish an order. Oh, and the best part? The very best part his conjecturing has saved for last?

He gets the added bonus of having to concoct a believable explanation for being recently fired at every interview and on every application.

He'd probably panic again, only the weight in his chest is weighing it down. If she's still speaking to him instead of kicking him right out, is that a good sign?

“I don't see that we've placed you under any kind of undue stress – and if we did, you should've raised the issue with me instead of pulling a stunt like that.”

It's almost funny, really, the way she reels off the simplest of steps he could've taken to make things easier on himself, like it's really possible to do when you think you're going to die. _Everything_ causes him undue stress. That's why it's called a panic disorder, not a panic really-great-and-healthy-way-of-being.

 _Do I think I'm too good for this job?_ Like he should be handled with kid gloves just because he had something of a bad time for a few years. _Move the fuck on_ . Even Jay's doing it. There are pills for this. There's therapy. Perhaps. He'd walk into the office and lie on the couch after shaving to look presentable. Roll with the stalker story Jay gives everyone and watch each word he said as intently as he would a shadow outside his window. His heart skipping a beat every time he tripped on his tongue and said something about tapes and woods and not remembering. Skipping and tripping until he couldn't take any more. _You couldn't make it up_. Panicking about panicking about not being able to explain what you're panicking about.

“Look, you're obviously in no fit state to finish your shift today. Go home, and if you want to tell me what's going on, we'll see what we can do.”

 _What's going on?_ Like he could say anything that would make his imminent return to daytime TV – one thing he really is too good for - any less likely. _What's wrong with me? Quite a lot of things_ . Laurel has reddish hair and embeds flower pins in it and she freckles in the sun and looks, like her namesake, as though she's just sprung out of the ground. Gentle, like petals blowing together. _Why doesn't she get this?_ This is Tim's awkward silences when asked what he did for the weekend and Jay's pretending to be asleep. This is the joy of having an illness of which a symptom is nausea at the thought of telling anyone about it.

“I need you to leave now so I can see what's happening about cover.” She looks down and ruffles through a stack of papers on the desk.

Brian nods and heads to the door. In the glass his face, drawn and white, is imprinted over the long view of the bar. The sun paints wide streaks of light across the floor, broken intermittently by happier people crossing. The staff room opens right onto the bar, giving him a good walk of shame in front of his co-workers before he can close the main door and put this behind him. There's no coming back after this, he'll be all they talk about, is he a slacker or is he just nuts?

He pushes on the door and opens it with tortured animal yell, diverting curious eyes his way. In, out. He measures his breathing in time with his footsteps on the floor. Everyone still has their heads full of food, though Alice, the waitress, calls after him as he goes. She might as well try to shout through deep and stagnant water. Brian steps out onto the street and looks at the ridiculous dolphin over the door for the last time.

 _Well. Maybe not. She sounded kind of sympathetic_.

Yeah, right. He ducks into an alley to the right of the bar where there's a bench and sits with his head forward, resting on his knees. He can't call Tim to pick him up. He's working and they're going to need to save petrol money, now. _Do I even know the way to walk home?_ The bus stop announces itself just across the road, but it'll be loud and cramped and all those people, too hot and too full of thoughts. He sets off walking. He has nothing better to do with two and a half hours.

He can get as far as the centre of town. The route can't be too hard to work out from there. Maybe he could call in at the store when Tim finishes and take a ride home, say it was quiet and he finished early – _and that's not going to work_. He's going to have to come clean about letting them all down eventually.

His shoes are pinching, not made to be walked in so long, and not waterproof either. Streetlights, flickering on already in the gloom, draw streaks across the road, broken by his feet colliding with puddles. And he can't even claim there's something to look forward to, to spurn him on. He's sniffling right here in the middle of the street, and why not just let it go? It's not like anyone would notice with the rain running over his face. Not like they'd even look at some skinny man sporting a very attractive drowned rat look and staring at the ground.

Tim used to talk about places he walked past, casting a cut of his shadow into a spill of light from warmer windows, and Brian gets it. Standing on the outside looking in. He's hobbling, with a blister about to burst on the left side of his right foot and a searing pain in both his soles. _I used to_ run _for longer than this without thinking_. He collapses onto another bench, his knees buckling under him. The buildings around him are taller and closer together, and past a row of sandstone buildings is a line of trees in the middle of the road – _I've seen that before._

The rain goes on, drizzling slow and spitting just to prolong his torture, though the temperature refuses to drop with it and sweat itches his face. He wasn't wise enough to bring a jacket and his shirt is sticking to his skin in a way that's much less flattering than it was years ago. He sets off again, heading east, in the rough direction of the house.

 _Do I think I'm too good for this job?_ The words fall in time with the rain. He deserves better pay, but then so does everyone – it shouldn't be conditional on good looks or having a degree or studying some arty subject. But is that what the others think when he doesn't talk? College buddies said such things of Tim, even before he tried to adopt the chain-smoking aloofness of his film character. How to make them see that it's nothing to do with not wanting to talk, but simply not knowing how? Can it be so difficult? To just unlock whatever it was he had in him before, let the words free, take a plunge...

With impeccable timing, a slightly speeding car passes and douses his right side in muddy puddle water. _Fuck-knuckle_ . They speed on without a care in the world, leaving him dripping and miles from home. Petrol swirls glistening colour into pools along the sidewalk. He catches his shadow sparkling as he crosses – _somewhere over the rainbow_ – for what looks like the turning away from the main street to the residential part of town. The trees are starting to look familiar, as much trees can. He follows the snaking road, the canopy providing a shower and intermittent cars honking at him because he's dared to inconvenience them by having no other way of getting home. The bustle of town bleeds away and leaves only a chirping bluebird somewhere unseen in the leaves above him. Detached houses keep themselves to themselves. It's right for Tim and Jay – out of the way, secluded, perfect for keeping secrets. _But it's not me_. He needs colour and motion, like the film kids used to say about static camera shots.

He reaches the front porch and lays his hand upon the door, just to breathe, just to _stop_. Before fresh hell awaits him. He turns the door handle, maybe Jay won't hear, but instantly the vague buzz of the TV stops. Jay's on the coach, calm and cool with shoulders sagging as Brian walks through the door alone. But hey, it seems like a good day to disappoint people. The hall mirror reveals the extent of what this disgusting weather has done to him, sweat mingling with rain over the beetroot hue of his face.

“Are you okay?”

 _What does it look like, Jay?_ “It's just a little rain.”

“Where's Tim? Didn't you come home with him?”

“I... finished early and took a walk!” He finishes by raising his arms jubilantly and helping himself to juice.

Jay's relentless, like a flea buzzing around his head. “You walked home? But it's miles.”

Brian shrugs. _When did you get perceptive?_ “I used to run further than that.”

“Yeah, but, that was before, and not when you'd already been at work.”

 _Can he just go back to never speaking to me?_ “Well, as you say, it's been a while. I could use the exercise, so here I am.”

“You're not fooling me.”

“Can you just stop playing detective for five minutes?”

Jay turns away from him and switches the TV back on, grating canned laughter filling the room. “Anyone would think you were, I don't know, looking for my weak points and trying to distract me or something.”

Brian blinks at the thin man lounging in his chair, then shoves his way through to his bedroom. He closes the door and pulls off his sodden clothing, which is free to sit there and wrinkle on the floor. It's not like he has any use for clean pressed shirts anymore. He throws on new boxers and a hoodie and falls onto the bed, melting into the soft grey storm colours around him. Lightning flashes outside and provides the only animation in front of his slipping eyes. Since when did Jay fucking care? He has a couple of good weeks and suddenly he knows everything?

But it wasn't fair to lash out. Jay can't know. It's fucking pathetic for Brian to be the one sat on the ground sobbing and panicking and messing things up for himself when the other two had it so much worse. Look at Tim, carrying on indistinguishable from the world at large even with the way he grew up.

Brian stretches, cracking joints all down his back. The trek in the rain has left him aching head to toe on his bed. Tim's bed. How can this be _his_ room when all his belongings are lost or back at that family house full of curios so alien to him now? Still. _Tim buying a spare bed and being optimistic enough that he'd have guests to invite... now, that's something that seemed impossible way back when_. That must be him coming home now – look at him, with a job and a relationship and everything. And Jay, eating and getting dressed every day when he was bleeding out on the floor not so long ago.

 _Do I think I'm too good for this?_ Being the third wheel, the burden, the loose link in the team, the one everyone's sorry for. They're murmuring to each other too softly, too intimately, for him to make out. He'll never have with anyone the bond they have. Girls will catch his eye and maybe with a few more hot meals and a few more runs he'll catch theirs in turn, but a tall and faceless shadow will always slip between them. And yeah, he fucking deserves better. So would anyone. He pulls the blankets around himself as the rain hammers outside.

A shiver takes him, and nothing more. Rain falling through a gap in the roof, leaking onto his pillow, pooling in an empty lidless pill bottle. _No_ . The vision stops, like he's wiped the screen. His heart doesn't even tremor. Could be he's used up his reserve of panic for the day. Not that there's a _reason_ to panic. _It's in the past, and it's only pictures_. He's not really going back. So, then, he's free to go forwards. Tim and Jay can do it.

They're making their way along the corridor together, footsteps a beat out of time. _Great_ . He's got nothing else to do but listen to their bed creaking for the next half-hour or so. _Headphones?_ He scrabbles on the bedside table, then sags back. The music he craved so on his walk home is just a collection of noise. All of the lyrics he used to belt, girls and parties, would rub his throat like sandpaper set against his life now. There's a knock on the door.

“Brian? Can we come in?”

 _Jay_ . “Yeah, sure.” Why are they coming in instead of shouting him, or asking through the door? He covers up with his blanket as the living room appears behind two silhouettes. Tim sits next to him uninvited, while Jay hovers in the doorway, arms folded. _Well done, you caught me in the act of not being okay, enjoy being smug about it_.

“I thought we weren't keeping secrets from each other in this house anymore,” says Tim. “Why don't you tell me why you've just walked miles in the rain instead of calling me for a ride home?”

“I already said. I could use the exercise.”

“Yeah, you're looking so well on it. Brian, I know something's going on. What happened at your work that's so awful you think you can't tell me about it?”

“It's nothing to do with work.”

“Then what is it to do with?”

They're both too adept at this game of hide and seek the mental health problem to let any loose end he leaves go unnoticed. There's no script for this, no go-to phrase he can call on to convince them everything's alright when it's never going to be okay again.

“I had a fucking panic attack, alright?” He spits it, getting rid of a bad taste. Only saying it doesn't convey a fraction of the surety he was going to die on that floor, especially once Laurel walked in. “And my boss can't leave me alone for five minutes so she knows. We're all going broke because of me. There you go.”

Tim knuckles his forehead like he has a headache and lets out a long sigh. It was bound to come out eventually. Maybe it's time to do the right thing and volunteer to move out, let them get on with their lives, starve by himself – he deserves no less if he can't keep a lid on his own adrenaline. It'll be lonely having nightmares on his own. Even if you're laughing and joking instead of talking about _it_ , the shadows don't look so dark when someone who can say “I know” lies only two rooms away.

When Tim speaks, it's in a low whisper. “Did you really think I wouldn't be there for you, after every time you've talked me down from the same thing?”

 _Wait a second_. “I didn't want to, I don't know, trouble you.”

“That's what you thought? Okay. I've been a shitty friend, I know. But I'm working on it.”

“No, no, it's not your fault. You guys have had enough to deal with, you don't need me feeling sorry for myself on top of it.”

“It's not just feeling sorry for yourself if it's making you panic like that,” says Jay, sitting on the bed on his left.

“It's nice of you to try to reassure me but I can't even do a fucking bar job without fucking it up. Where do I go from there?”

Jay shrugs. “Maybe you should try to find a job that keeps you away from people. Just until you're a little more adjusted.”

“Also, a bar job isn't for everyone. It takes skill to do that, just like anything else does,” says Tim, with an edge to his voice. “Not everyone's quick on their feet, not everyone can multitask, not everyone's particularly sociable.”

“Suppose. I just don't know what I have to offer.”

Jay holds up his forearms. “I'm wearing my sweatbands, see? That was a good idea. No therapist would've ever thought of that.”

“I'm... glad that's working out for you. I guess don't know _for sure_ that I've lost this job, I just can't stand the thought of going back there now. Like, I get all panicky just imagining it.”

Tim runs a hand through his hair. “I know that one. But, you know, I think it's like anything else. You get better at being part of the world by doing it more. And one of the best fixes for it is going back and doing the thing and finding out it wasn't so bad as you thought it would be.”

Jay nods. “Have you thought about maybe looking at some kind of therapy?”

“What are they going to do? What happened to us is kind of out of their line of expertise.”

“You could try to see Andrea. She's been really good with me,” says Jay. “She also thinks you have the face of an angel.”

Brian smiles. “That's nice of her.”

“She likes you more, though,” he says, leaning forward to look in Tim's direction. “She says the quiet ones always make the best lovers.”

Tim's face is frozen in an exquisite open-mouthed shock. “Is that all you did at your appointments? Encourage her thirst?”

“It's sounding better already,” says Brian, and they're all laughing. He turns to the floor with half-formed tears still in his eyes, dropping when Tim's hand reaches up to rest on his shoulder.

“Whatever's going on with you, talk to us about it, okay? Whatever happens with work, there's other jobs, but we'll only ever have each other to really understand. I hate to think of you feeling you have to keep things from me.”

Tim pulls him in for a hug and Brian lets his sore head fall against his chest. And to his other side, Jay shuffles along and rests his head on his shoulder, reaching to hold Tim's hand so Brian's nestled between them. _I'm not going to cry, not again_. And so they stay, feeding off each other's warmth, each other's being there, until Tim's stomach growls and he extricates himself to open the door.

“Let's go get something to eat. You know, while we can still afford to.”

Hours later, Brian's back in his room, full of largely plain pasta. That's what they do with it in Italy, after all, just butter and a little pepper. They're being cultural. Nothing to do with saving at all. The rain has let up and his parents will be here midday tomorrow – Tim is about as enthusiastic over the prospect of his house being invaded as he was about the mooted idea of a trip in the woods to take their minds off it, but it's happening. They're bringing all the fishing stuff with them, and the weather is looking up, and he's drifting off to sleep with a smile on his face. Because, for the first time since he woke up on a flooding floor, he has a plan.

_But am I good enough for it?_

 


	25. Ensemble

_The bridge at midnight trembles_  
 _The country doctor rambles_  
 _Bankers' nieces seek perfection_  
 _Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring_  
 _The wind howls like a hammer_  
 _The night blows cold and rainy_  
 _My love, she's like some raven_  
 _At my window with a broken wing_  
\- Bob Dylan

Tim slaps his arm, a short sharp noise like a gunshot in the middle of this hushed and verdant field, and wipes the brown smear on his jeans. How to go about drawing fishes the way he's drawing flies? Three hours of squinting in the sun, swatting bugs and sweating, for not so much as a tug on this stick he's holding out. Not that his house is going to offer a moment of respite with twice as many people as its single storey was designed for crammed into it, making noise and asking questions. There is a hell and he's seen it.

He takes a sip of water and nibbles the cheese sandwich Brian's mom put together for them, finding her way around the kitchen like she knew it already. _Probably better than I do. Not that I can complain_. The cupboards are full because of the Thomas family and their beaming generosity - a few days of occupation and a rug thrown over the stained carpet in the bedroom seemed a small price to pay for not, you know, starving. He's been sleeping with Jay in the music room, where the little girl immediately turned her attention, drawn like a rare breed of pink magpie to the shiny new guitar strings. Once he'd prised it from her clumsy fingers, “Uncle Tim” was called upon to play a song and snook in a ukulele version of the riff from Joy Division's _She's Lost Control_ , playing on repeat until Brian's dinner was ready. Then he sat for an hour or so deflecting “So, how did you and Jay meet?”s and “What do you see for yourself in the future?”s over sour wine and chicken Parmesan.

Tim sighs and sweeps his damp hair off to the side. Brian needs this, after the day before.

His meltdown won him this ridiculous alpha male bonding activity, too. Brian is sat with splayed legs on the bank, shorts on, wide-brimmed hat keeping the worst of the sun from his face. Fishing would be a nice diversion, a good way to unwind, he said. So far all Tim's unwound is the length of tangled line he's dangling ineffectually into the river. There's nothing relaxing in burning the nape of his neck with an unfamiliar and unguarded wood whispering at his back while he's swatting mosquitoes every few seconds.

Jay's looking over the river from underneath a floppy denim hat and the sight of him softens Tim, just a little, enough to smile. He hasn't spoken since they sat down, but he's sitting back loose-limbed and whipping out his phone periodically to take photos. He doesn't flinch at a broken twig somewhere along the bank, and of the three of them, it's his line who's been bobbing the most.

“They like you.”

It takes a second or two for Jay to register that he's been spoken to, then he smiles, rubbing his hair. “I guess.”

“You remember how to reel 'em in, like I showed you?” says Brian beside him.

“Yeah, but... I don't want to hurt them.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “They're fish, Jay. They live in three-second intervals.”

“That's goldfish,” says Brian.

“Also, it's a myth. I read up about it and some scientists tested a bunch of goldfish with a lever dispensing food in their tank, and they pressed the lever at the same time every day for months,” says Jay, nodding smugly as he finishes.

Tim lifts his hands and pulls out a cigarette. “Fine. You win. Don't those science types have cancers to cure?”

Brian turns his head in a 'la la la, I'm not listening' sort of way and sighs, long and deliberate. “Isn't this great?”

Tim slaps his arm again – this time, the bastard got away. “If you're into being burned and bitten, I guess so.”

“You're not feeling the great outdoors, are you?”

“I think we could've had a great time indoors watching a movie.”

“I think it's nice,” says Jay, who's sat on the very edge of the bank with one hand in the water, laughing as the fish gather around him. Tim rolls his eyes. Between squinting at the sun and grinning every time Jay so much as catches the corner of his eye, he'll be going home with a few new wrinkles to add to the deepening collection of stress lines on his face.

Brian dangles an empty water bottle to the side of his face. “If you're hating it so much, why don't you get the rest of the stuff from the car?”

“I'll do it!” Jay leaps to his feet, laying his rod on the bank.

“I thought you were having a fine time here?”

“I just... want to see more of the place is all. I haven't been out in so long.”

He's up to something. There's that edge to his voice and the little puff at the end of his sentences. Tim frowns. “I've got the keys. I'll go.”

“You're not about to start fighting over this, are you? I brought you guys out here to _unwind_. Being close to nature always does that for me.”

“If you like it so much, here, have some more.”

Brian falls away from Tim's shoving hands back into the river. He lands ass first, sending up walls of water around him before coming back up with a crown of pond weed on his head and his white T-shirt clinging to him. He throws a splash of river water in Tim's direction, and he doesn't side-step quite in time. One hiking boot is sodden.

“You just wanted to see this, didn't you?” Brian pulls himself up by the long grass and throws his T-shirt to the ground, skin glistening as he rubs his arms. Tim smiles, and not for the reason implied, though it is a fine sight to see a little more meat on Brian's arms.

“Looks like a cold is all you're going to catch today.”

“Just give it time, and - where's Jay?”

Tim turns around and only a grassy knoll is waiting for him.

“Did he go to the car after all? I've got the key.”

 _Typical Jay_ . Will he make it as far as the lane they parked in before he realises his error? But even for him, this is a piece of astonishing poor judgement and absent mind. Tim laughs, shaking his head. _There was a time Jay would've disappeared and I'd_... He shivers, even in the bright sunlight. The wood whistles on in the wind.

Brian's run a little way up the hill behind them. “There's footprints leading to the woods up there.”

 _That's not where we left the car._ “Why the hell would he...?” Tim breaks into a run, then stops and turns. “Stay here with the stuff. I'm going to find him.”

Uphill sprints and a rising heartbeat; just what his long-abused lungs need. He stops, bending with his hands on his knees on the crest. “Jay?” The only answer is a breeze blowing his hair back from his forehead. He coughs. He coughs some more, more than he would from exertion alone. _Stop this_. Jay wandered off, forgetting something. It's nothing unusual. _Just catch up to him and mock him for a while_.

He's running now, throwing himself over mounds and rises. “Jay?” The prints of his sneakers lead right into the woods – the trees are spaced sparsely, and the sun is streaking in beams between them, but swaying shadows creep across the overgrown trail Tim treads. Breaking twigs underfoot and branches catching his jeans betray his every step, and the hiss of indrawn breath when something scuttles along behind him. _It's nothing_. They're way out in the wild here and everything's louder with no-one around to here it. There'll be all sorts of critters going about their business paying no heed to overly devoted boyfriends.

His footing surer, he trots through the trees, following the clearest path in sight and calling out for Jay. No response but the wind in the leaves and a stream singing somewhere nearby. How far ahead could Jay be that he can't hear? He breathes, in, out. This doesn't have to mean... _that_. This is Jay. He's probably distracted by a bird's nest or something.

Only after the encounter outside the one-time Kralie abode, when Jay was there but not quite there, wandering with staggered steps but with his head pointed in a definite direction...

 _No_. It's behind them.

_Right?_

It cuts through the brush, plaintive and shrill. “Help!”

“Jay!” No time for that. He's running with an iron tang of blood in his throat, dead leaves flying around him and crushed to mulch beneath his boots, tripping, stumbling, coughing as his blood surges. No time to stop. The forest whirls around him, green and brown blurring into static, but where to?

With his head down the shapes of leaves and mud churning beneath his feet take him back to the day, searching Rosswood together, and whatever happened after the thing took him in the tunnel. “ _Jay!_ ” Running to find Jay, to find his footing, to find anything familiar. Plunged back into the water again, the weight of it closing in on him, and now, forcing his lungs in a vice grip...

Tim falls to his knees. The trees are too close his feet won't move. _Get up_. But he's shaking too much and the ground isn't firm enough and Jay is out there somewhere but he can't breathe enough to go to him and yes, these are symptoms he's talked himself down from on so many lonely nights, but it doesn't -

“Someone help!”

He slaps himself. _I do not have_ time _for this._ “Jay! Can you hear me? Where are you?”

Silence. The chirrup of a bird somewhere behind him.

Breathing in torn gasps from his raw throat, he swallows, whispers. “Jay?”

Nothing. The woods open up around him, the branches gathering to hiss like unforgiving strangers and showing too many places for darker things to hide. He chills in the sifting shadows and moves on, crouched.

He was only gone a couple minutes. But a couple minutes was all it took to – and he swats at the memories, like flies. _Nothing's happened_. Jay's probably lost, like he always is. _But why isn't he answering?_ Of course, they're going to laugh about this later, but bile is rising in his throat all the same.

 _Not now. Not when he was doing so well_.

There's a scuffle from a clearing up ahead. If nothing else, it's time out of the shadows. Tim jogs forward, chest heaving, into the sunlight.

“Jay!”

He's sitting with his hat at a jaunty angle in the middle of the clearing, crouched. He turns to Tim and raises one finger to his lips. Tim falls from the waist up onto a gnarled iron gate in front of a tumbledown house, eaten by bracken and staring at him from broken windows. He shuts his eyes and breathes - tears are streaming down his face,. He wipes them away, and great, there's mud all over his hands and now his cheeks. _Jay's okay_. But he was calling for help five minutes ago. And there's a look in his eyes, distant and glazed...

“Jay, what's going on?”

“Quiet! You've scared him away!”

_Him?_

Jay turns from him, staring into the woods. Waiting. A shrub in front of them shivers, and Tim screams, but it catches in his throat. He's frozen. He should be running to Jay's side, throwing himself down first, but all he can do is stand with every muscle tensed.

The leaves part, and between them staggers a tiny fawn. Only just on its too-long legs, by the look of things, swaying as it walks and mewling. Jay leans forward and holds out a hand, waggling his fingers.

“Reggie! Come on, it's okay, he won't hurt you. He's just noisy.”

As his limbs unlock one by one, Tim is torn between throttling Jay and clapping his hands to his mouth to hide his idiot grin.

“A fucking deer? You scare me to death over a fucking deer?”

“Why were you scared?”

“You were yelling for help! What was I supposed to think?”

“I found him caught in that gate over there. He was all squirming and I didn't think I was strong enough to help him out by myself, but I did.”

He nods at the final part of the sentence and tips some water from his bottle into a cupped hand. The deer trots forward, measuring each step, but bowing its head to lap from his fingers.

Tim crouches and falls down beside them, leaning back on his hands. “I guess I should've known. What with the way you just _had_ to stop and pet every dog we saw in Rosswood.” He chokes back a sob. _Jay's okay_. Jay's okay, and he is the most ridiculous human being alive, and the whining animal is stepping into his lap. His mouth wide in wonder, Jay laughs, eyes shining beneath the folds of his hat.

He turns to Tim, cocking an eyebrow. Whether it's the sniffling or the muddy tear tracks pawed onto his skin that does it, he leans in and puts his free arm around him. “What happened to you?”

Tim lets himself nestle into his shoulder, Jay bearing the brunt of his weight. “I kind of panicked while I was looking for you.”

“It's pretty much your turn by this point,” whispers Jay, kissing his cheek.

“Someone could make a killing setting cameras up in our house and letting people take bets on who's next.”

“Not cameras. Too soon.” But Jay's still smiling, stroking the deer, now curled up on his legs with the white marks along its back exposed and its head resting on his knee.

“You shouldn't do that. It's going to smell of you and its mother won't want it.”

“Who made you an expert? It's fine. As long as he's not around humans, like, every day.” Jay strokes along his back. “You can touch him. He won't hurt you, will you, Reggie?”

Using everything he has not to roll his eyes, Tim reaches out one hand and smooths it over the deer's back. The creature sniffles and shifts, but the rise and fall of his breath remains steady. Soft. Warm. Even. A little laugh escapes out of nowhere. “Where did Reggie come from?”

“I think he looks like a Reggie.”

“You're absurd. What were you even doing out here, though?”

“I went back to the car to get Brian some water. Or, at least, I was going to. I got kind of sidetracked by this little man.”

“You are indeed aware that I've got the car keys, right?”

“Oh, yeah.” Jay hiccups and laughs. “Just as well I found Reggie instead, right?”

“Right.” They kiss, a quick peck on the lips, and stay still to hear the wind rustling the leaves. It's not a conversation of conspiracy now – more a quiet soundtrack. Tim keeps one hand on the deer and drifts the fingers of the other up and down Jay's spine, which is not quite so prominent as it was a few weeks ago. He's glowing with the sun in his eyes, looking down at the animal curled up on him.

“I wanted you to see that I'd be okay on my own.”

“I know you are, Jay.”

“But the minute I said I'd go and do it you wouldn't let me.”

“And look what happened. Brian would've died of thirst because you were too busy being a Disney princess.”

“You're just jealous because he's cuter than you.”

“When he's paying for the roof over your head, then we'll talk about that. I'm proud of you, I really am. I know you're okay on your own.”

“Okay. So, did you actually get Brian some water with your car keys?”

“No, but you missed him falling in the river. I think he's had more than enough water for now.”

“Oh? He just happened to fall in?”

“Yeah, it was the strangest thing, him being such an outdoor type and all. Personally I think he brought us all the way out here to host his own personal wet T-shirt contest. Which he'd win against me, I guess.”

“I could say you were fishing for compliments with that.”

“You've been spending too much time with him. Come on, let's get out of here.”

Jay yawns and moves his legs, shaking the slumbering deer awake. He rests a hand on his head as he stands.

“Bye, Reggie. I'll have to come back and see you soon.”

If Jay's interested in going outside again, well, today had a purpose after all. They stroll back through the woods side by side with an arm around each other, picking their way over puddles and loose branches, until they come out onto the trail and see Brian over the hill, pacing shirtless. They're both sweating by the time they arrive back, and he sighs upon seeing them.

“For real? I know there's only one physical activity you two are ever interested in, but it's not exactly what I meant by outdoor exertion.” He shakes his head. “You've got the forest floor all over your back.”

“We've been rescuing wildlife, actually,” says Jay, laughing as Tim brushes leaves and twigs off the back of his shirt. “Not out fault if you have a dirty gutter for a mind.”

“Anyone would think you had your shirt off ready for me,” Tim adds.

“Get in the car. I've had plenty of time to get all the stuff together.”

They pile in and drive with the windows down, Brian stripped to his boxers and sprawled out over the back seat. Jay's behind the wheel with Tim still fluttering a little inside. He's leaning into the steering wheel and looking side to side for police, but they haven't seen so much as a fellow traveller in a whole five minutes and that's fortunate for any other ramblers, given that Brian's now belting an old Dylan song – one of the few times they'll agree on music, even if Brian's delivery renders it almost unrecognisable.

“ _People carry roses,_  
Make promises by the hours,  
My love she laughs like the flowers,  
Valentines can't buy her.”

Brian sings it and Jay – kind, quiet Jay who only needs a deer to make him happy – catches Tim's eye, and their shared smile could've made for a beautiful moment if the damn song had the good grace to be delivered in tune.

Brian's parents run out as soon as the car pulls up in the drive, declaring they're taking him clothes shopping – even before their firstborn's bare chest became apparent. The invite extends to all of them, but crowds? Noise? Not after the fright in the wood, so Tim and Jay are landed with babysitting duty. Jay shows a cursory photo of Reggie the deer to be approved of, only he has a convenient paragraph to write, so Tim's left with little Grace in the music room.

“Can I have a story, Uncle Tim?”

“I am not your Uncle Tim. You've never had an Uncle Tim.”

“Story!”

It's reading or playing with the pre-programmed beats on the keyboard again, which is why Jay comes along a little later to find Tim reading aloud with Grace's arms stretched as far around his waist as they'll go. The click of a phone camera signals his arrival. “Yes?”

“I thought you could use this.” He hands over a glass of water and peers at the book cover. “ _The Metamorphosis_? Really?”

“It's a talking beetle. Kids love that stuff.”

“You don't think it's a little heavy?”

“She's going to learn some time.” The blonde head resting against his side drops when he moves. “And she's not listening anyway.”

“Think we can get out of here?”

Jay unwinds Grace's arms from Tim's waist and she falls back onto the couch without a sound. He throws one of their blankets around her and they walk to the kitchen. Tim puts his glass down by the sink, leaning on the counter.

“You should be resting, too.” Jay rubs his arm gently. “After what happened in the woods.”

“I've had worse. I've done a full day of work on worse.”

“And you shouldn't.” Jay pushes himself up onto the kitchen counter, tapping a glass tumbler to an irregular rhythm.

“I'm free tomorrow as well, right? Don't worry.” True, every other sentence he read was punctuated with a yawn and he's stretching his back as he walks across to the sink, but he doesn't have enough time with Jay as it is. “You better not be getting any ideas.”

“What do you mean?”

“Fawning over that kid.”

“Was that an intentional deer pun, or?”

“Damn it.”

“You know I want them even less than you do, right? Other people's can be nice, but they're kind of relentless.” He pauses. “Can we get a cat?”

“When you get a job and pay for it.”

“I'm working on it.” The ringing of the glass stops and he moves his hands to his lap, pulling at a loose string.

Tim stands in front of him, hands on his waist. “I didn't mean it like that.”

“Yeah. I'm sorry about today. I won't worry you again.” Jay smiles, but without turning to look at him. “We're never going to be free of this, are we?”

“I doubt it. It's like I said, right? If you spend your whole life looking out for it, it wins either way. You've got to act like it's over. Focus on the good things.” Tim holds off a sigh. “Like Reggie.”

Jay laughs. “That's a good thing to focus on. Like, I'm going to need to get myself back into shape if I want to help things like I helped him. Maybe it can help me make up for – nothing. Today was good.”

 _I know_. The bodies on the ground in that dark empty space, Jessica lying still and alone, Alex crumpling like paper on the floor of the basement.

But Jay shakes his head, balling a fist. “No. Like you said. Act like it's over and done.”

He slides off the counter and throws his arms around Tim's neck, bending at the knees as he lands so his brow is just level with Tim's eyeline. Tim glides his palms over his back and pulls him close, small and bird-like. Jay's grabbing the back of his head and teasing at his lips with the tip of his tongue, which is... _interesting_ , given how distant he's been of late. And when his other hand slips down to run up Tim's inner thigh... how long has it been? Months?

Between soft gasps and rushed glances between kisses, Jay whimpers; “How long do we have until they're all back?”

“It's a ten minute drive for me -” Tim's breath hitches at the hand kneading between his legs “- so in old people time that's like -” and pushes Jay back onto the counter. _Long enough_. He bites down on his long neck, enough that it'll bruise, but it's not like they're going anywhere. Jay whimpers right next to his ear, close enough that this overwhelmed exhalation stirs the tiny hairs on his neck, and Jesus fucking Christ it's been too long.

“You're sure you want to do this?”

A picture of Jay flushing and reaching for his zipper is indeed worth the thousand words that would go to waste as he kisses him again, until they're breathless -

Until the front door opens, and Brian walks right in, wearing a crimson silk bomber jacket. _Of course he is_. His parents are standing at his side. Tim gets a flash of shocked Pat and eyebrow-quirking Carole before a rush of blood to the head has him turning away.

Jay wriggles but from under him, coughs, mumbling something about feeling thirsty. Which is one way of putting it, behind the counter, which thank God sits just above waist height.

Tim plasters a smile on his flushed face. “Did you... get what you were looking for? Have fun on your trip?”

“We did,” says Carole. She turns around, affirming that Grace is a asleep and oblivious on the couch, and turns back to them with her white smile. “Seemingly not as much as you boys, though.”

Somewhere behind him, there's the sound of water being incredulously spat onto the floor. And just to top it all off, a tiny pink outline appears in the door to the music room.

“I saw Uncle Tim and Uncle Jay _kissing_.”

Brian kneels in front of her, underneath the crossfire of frantic glances between parents and Tim and Jay's gazes directed at the same spot on the floor.

“You see, Gracie, sometimes two guys can love each other very much, just like your mom and dad do, and -”

“Yeah, I know. It's still just as gross as when mom and daddy do it, though.” She lifts her head, pensive, weighing up the look of all the cupboards. “Can I have a cookie now, please?”

 


	26. Sketch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some NSFW content - don't read this in public. I didn't write it in public this time.

_Listening reveals his wounds  
_ _Voiceless, he kneels to you  
_ _Like a glinting dagger, one quick look  
_ _And he spills you  
_ _Sheets surrender you, and I expect trauma  
_ _You're called a silhouette, you're playful with a sin  
_ _But you see me  
_ _Speak, or stop, or kiss me  
_ _Your art is like your grin - it delivers me_  
\- Maudlin of the Well

  
“You're looking very beautiful today.” Andrea breezes into the room in a sky blue suit and a cloud of ylang ylang, dumps her files in front of him and pulls up a seat. “Any reason, other than giving you the ability to fiddle with your tie when you're nervous?”

Jay drops the slip of red silk wrapped around his finger and grins. “I just thought it would be nice.”

“The shirt really brings out the colour of your eyes. It complements that mark on your neck quite nicely, too.”

His hand jerks to the bruise Tim left the night before, still tender and glaring violet on his stay-at-home skin. What's the use of a collar if it's still on show? All they're good for is forgetting to be folded down and making him look like a kid – if only he could turn it up enough to sink his red cheeks into it. Andrea smirks and pulls papers from her files, quick as a card dealer.

“No need to ask how things are going with the boy. How are you feeling in general? Can I get you tea, coffee, anything?”

“No, thanks. I'm... okay,” says Jay, after a beat. He frowns. _Something's missing_. The sinking in his stomach that usually accompanies an announcement about his wellbeing. _Oh, yeah. I'm not lying_. Jay laughs, and Andrea quirks an arched eyebrow at him, but lets it fall as he sinks a little in his seat.

“You've not had any more thought of harming yourself?”

“Well...” _Don't beat around the bush or anything_. She leans further forward, waiting on an answer. _Guess I should respond in kind_. His fingers hover over a stray pen on his side of the desk, scraping as he rolls it back and forth on the burnished wood. He tenses and takes his hand away. The office is cool and airy with pale walls and drawn drapes to keep things private, but all is quiet in this end of the hospital, too quiet. He clears his throat. “I guess I _thought_ of it, but I haven't done it, and I'm not planning anything... really stupid. It's more like an impulse to think about it at this point, you know?”

“I understand. But you're recognising it and this is great! You're managing food?”

“Just like normal, now. I get hungry, I drool a little when I see pizza on the TV. I don't even think about it much.”

“And you're not drinking?”

“No.” He squirms a little in his seat. But he hasn't been _drunk_ , so he's not lying. Just omitting a very small and insignificant truth to spare her any worry. She shouldn't worry, not in her pretty office. Don't those little pink flowers on the desk cast the prettiest shadow from this angle, falling on the tumbledown stack of paper? “I guess the thing is, uh, I think we're all unemployed again now, so that's been weighing on me. I keep thinking I should be pulling my weight.”

“I'm not sure about you trying to work just yet, Jay.”

“It's kind of moot when there isn't any work going.” He pulls a loose thread on his hoodie.

“If you think you'll need it I have all kinds of details for food banks and such in the area?”

“I was hoping it won't come to that. We've had Brian's family with us the last couple days, and they bought some food in for us, so that ought to tide us over a little while. Tim will find something. He always does.”

“In response to that, I can think of at least five inappropriate jokes that I shall keep to myself. Either way, just let me know and I'll make sure you boys don't starve. How have you been coping with your visitors?”

“At first I thought I'd have to hide in my room the whole time, but Grace, the little girl, she came and found me and we ended up watching some animal videos on the computer. Then I went through for dinner and everyone else was really friendly. They were grateful to me for taking her off their hands, I guess.”

“You sat around a table with a bunch of new people?”

“No need to sound so incredulous, _God_ ,” he says with a grin, and they both laugh. “I didn't say a lot. But I didn't have a panic attack and throw up on the floor, either. Tim's not the most family-friendly person and he's so funny when he's trying not to be angry. You can see his cheekbones kind of twitch when you know he has a snide remark he's not letting himself say. I guess that's been distracting me.”

“Good, good. And you're leaning forward like you do when there's something else you want to tell me.”

“I went outside all of yesterday.” There's a note of smugness to his voice that has no place being there, when all he did was sit by a river – _stop that_. Celebrate your little victories, she'd tell him, even without knowing exactly how many good reasons he had to be afraid of leaving the house.

A little sunlight slips in through the blind. “In your garden, or?”

“No. We drove out to the woods for the day. Brian took us all fishing. And nothing bad happened!” Well. Jay bites his lip. Andrea doesn't need to fret, does she, about him taking vodka along for the ride? The last of it was down his throat when he first heard Reggie crying – so, really, it's a good thing he slipped off into the one place he didn't think Tim would expect to find him, otherwise the poor thing might have died.

No need to take the white smile from her face. “I knew he'd be an outdoor person. You catch anything?”

“I could've! I didn't want to hurt them, though. And something else happened.”

She leans forward, frowning. “Yes?”

“No, it's good. I walked by myself for a little while, and I found this fawn caught in a gate. I helped him out. And, I don't know, it just made me think. If I hadn't been there he might've never got out. We didn't see anyone else the whole time we were there. If I'd actually died that time I, you know, he might be dead, too.” He tears at a hangnail, but drops it to look her in the eye. “I don't believe in, like, fate, or everything happening for a reason, or whatever they tell you when they don't want to admit the world is a hard place. But I think you can make your own reasons for stuff happening, if you look at it right.”

_Jay, shut up_ . This is supposed to be a pre-group raincheck, not an excuse for him to sit spouting some pseudo-philosophy he came up with when he was trying and failing to fall asleep on a sofa too small for one, kept awake by the crick in his neck and Tim's body too warm next to him. She's going to laugh at him pretending to be enlightened when he can't change a bulb on his own.

“That's pretty much the way I've always looked at life,” she says at length. “I have deer in the woods next to my house. They mostly just wander in to make noise and mess with my garden, but if they're important to you, that's just great.”

“So I was thinking, maybe my writing could be kind of the same? If I put down some of what's been happening into words, and how I was feeling, maybe it could help someone else see that it gets better.”

Andrea sits back, her mouth in a line. “I don't know that it gets  _better_ , Jay. I think, once you know the depths your mind is capable of going to, it's hard to ever quite come back. But it does get  _easier._ You learn to recognise that these thoughts aren't entirely your own and some of it is illness talking. I know it's a hard thing to own up to, but it helps. I'm glad you're still writing, though.”

“A paragraph a day, like you said. Usually more.”

“You're blushing. I think you might be a little bit proud of it, even though I slightly suspect you only did it to try and prove me wrong when I said it could help.”

He grins, blushing harder. “You win this round.”

“Back to something you said last week – about people feeling sorry for you. Do you still feel that's the case?”

Jay shrugs and turns back to his hangnail. _Can't we talk about writing some more?_ “I guess they'd have to.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Isn't it kind of obvious?”

“Not from where I'm sitting. You're still young, for a start, and I've never seen you around town but I'm pretty sure you don't carry a neon sigh saying 'DEPRESSED' over your head the whole time.”

“Yeah, but not _that_ young, and I still haven't done anything with my life.”

“What are other twenty-six-year-olds doing with their lives that's so much better?”

He scuffs his sneaker along the floor, a kid in the principle's office for falling asleep in class again. “I don't know. They might at least have an idea about where they're going. Or some friends.”

“You have two people you care for. That's not nothing.” She glances off to the side. “I'm afraid the best way to meet people, generally speaking, is to get a job, but I don't think you're ready. And I'm not saying that to get you to prove me wrong, for once. I really don't advise it.”

Meeting people isn't easy, contrary to what Radiohead tried to say twenty years ago. “That's the thing. Even when I do talk to people and we're doing all the getting to know you questions I just... freeze. I hate saying I don't have a job and when I try to explain why I get all panicked, which is even more embarrassing, do you see what I mean?”

She nods. Jay leans in, in case someone should overhear.

“I've had people offering to hang out with me because they felt bad for leaving me alone before, and it's worse than being by myself.” They'll feel sorry for his hands, the marks on his wrists, and his too-pointy chin in his hands. “And I'm not exactly model material, am I?”

“I bet Tim would disagree. His is the answer that matters, right?”

Tim's hands on him yesterday, pushing him onto the counter, kissing him like he couldn't get enough – _okay, stop_. Any movement in his pants and she'll notice that, too. “Suppose. But doesn't anyone who sees us look at him and look at me and wonder how the hell that happened?”

“He probably thinks just the same of you. And generally speaking other people are too wrapped up in their own little worlds to notice. Bottom line is, attention is not centred on you as you think you are. And that's encouraging if you look at it the right way. And it's why, all these things you're saying? They're nothing to do with other people feeling sorry for you. It's all about you feeling sorry for yourself.”

_And how would you know what other people are thinking?_ She's scribbling something in her notebook with the pen almost perpendicular and a smug little smirk on her face. Because she knows his next thought, too;  _how do_ I  _know what other people are thinking_ ?

“I don't blame you, in a way,” she says, shaking her head. “From what you tell me you should've been treated for anxiety issues a long time ago, and of course, with everything that's happened since... Still. What can we do to stop you being the kind of person _you_ feel sorry for?”

_Give me a whole new life, I don't fucking know_ . Jay chews his lip, thumbing the ragged end of a sleeve. Life doesn't have a reset button – that's long established. Wishing otherwise won't get him anywhere.

“All those other people better off than you; what're you missing that they take for granted?”

Jay rolls the pen back and forth, until the motion steadies the tremor in his hand. “A purpose, I guess,” he says.

Andrea nods, like she's been waiting to hear it. “What would you say your purpose has been these last few months?”

“I think I've just kind of anchored myself to Tim. Like, I'm with him and that's supposed to make everything else better, and that's not a good idea. It's not fair on him.”

“It's good that you recognise that. Tim wants to support you and you deserve to be happy with him, but it isn't on him to fix you.”

She looks away to scribble in her notebook. All he says is evidence to her, she's paid to do this, not his friend giving an ear. But then, what reason is there she can't be both? She's easy to talk to, an honour Jay's bestowed on maybe three people in his life before. “I stuck with the writing I was doing, so that's a start. Did I tell you I finished my sea thing?”

“Oh, Jay, that's wonderful!”

“I don't know what I'll do with it, but it's there. I got it out.”

“Have you thought about looking at any kind of publication? Just local papers, sellers online? You'd bring some money in if nothing else.”

“Why is that always the first people say? You don't even know if it's good or not.”

“I have a hunch about you. But by all means, take your time, find your feet. Honing your skill is still a goal to have, a purpose. It'll make any boring job you have to do a little more bearable.”

“I guess I could say I'm a writer when people ask what I do instead of going 'Oh, I'm between jobs right now'. But I don't know if people would want to read it, anyway. It's just some of my thoughts.”

“If I've learned one thing, it's that there's a market for anything. How do you know if you don't try?”

_Not knowing is underrated_ .

“Look at Carl. He's up there every week reading his... you know, I can't even bring myself to insult Coleridge and call that poetry, but he gets up there and does it.”

“But everyone's just laughing at him.”

“Oh, there's an audience for that stuff, believe me. But even then, it isn't the audience that matters to him. He believes in himself and I think, give it a month or two, I won't be seeing too much more of him.”

_What was Carl in here for, again?_ He wasn't branded by his brain issues, like Jay was, right across his arms. Carl walks like a dandy and looks everyone in the eye with a wink.  _I can't do that_ . Jay puts a few words on a page and hunches over when anyone tries to read it – so what?

And yet, here he is, slouching comfortably in his seat with his arms in his lap, chatting away to Andrea like he could to his own mother, a woman he couldn't say hello to without stammering a month ago.

“One last thing before we join the others. You were telling me about Brian's family visiting. Have you done anything about getting back in touch with yours yet?”

This was a long time coming, because she always asks, but his stomach falls just the same. He pulls his sleeves down over his wrists, still scabbed and still sore. “I said last time. I have to wait until I'm a little better.”

“Jay, do you really think they want that? They haven't seen you in years. Do they even know you're alive?”

“I don't want them to see me like this.”

“They want to see you breathing. That's all.”

“But they'll see my wrists and how thin I got and wouldn't it be better to just spare them that? It wouldn't take too long.”

“No. They'll see you're still here, you're still fighting to get your life back together, you have a man who loves you, and you're writing stories.”

“They're not stories, more sort of -”

She lifts a hand. “I say they're stories, so they're stories. Be proud of them. Now, by the time you come back next week, I want you to have at least called your parents, okay?” She pauses. “Unless there's some reason not to. If they've ever harmed you or -”

“No!” _How could I ever let her think that?_ “No, I had a great life growing up. They gave me everything and that's why I can't stand for them to see me so sick.”

“And they'd give everything again just to know you were still around. Seriously. Call them by next week.”

He repeats his name in his head, in his mother's voice, in every inflection years with her out of mind for safekeeping will let him. 'Jay' in a tearful scream, the gravelly tone she used when he stayed out past his curfew, a whisper so delicate for fear of waking herself from the dream. _I am not going to cry, not in here_. A pit opens in his stomach, like he's hungry for food, and he draws in breath to fill it. To be with them again, back in the basement where he fixed up models with his dad amidst the smell of gasoline and wood shavings, with a homemade lasagne wafting down from their kitchen...

“Okay. I'll do it. I'll even record the call if you need me to.”

“Not necessary, I'll know if you're lying. I'm proud of you. Are you ready to join the others?”

Jay nods and stands, pulling on his sleeves and joining her by the door. “So, if you're done with the sea thing, what are you planning to work on next?”

“I had an idea for a children's book,” he says to Tim later, when they're sat on the floor of the music room in a pool of sunlight, a flotilla of stringed instruments sat in a wavy circle around them. “It's about a forest god called Reginald Cervidae.”

Tim sighs. “That took me a minute Typical you.”

“It's funny, Andrea was talking to me about audience contempt today.”

“You mean, like, actual life advice, instead of lusting after me?” Tim nods. “But go on, what happens in the story?”

“The idea is he finds people who get lost in the woods and shows them the way home,” he says. Beside him, Tim's turned back to plucking odd strings on the ukulele, his hair hanging into his eyes as he wanders the fretboard. “You think it's stupid, don't you?”

“No, I'm just trying to create a backdrop for your little forest scene there.”

“I can never tell when you're joking.”

“Don't think that. I think it's a good idea.” Tim stretches his arms above his head, bringing them down and letting one fall on Jay's shoulders. “I don't know. I was never really a kid, so I'm not the best judge. I'm kind of sat here wondering what his underlying motivation is, why he doesn't get a real job instead of following people who don't understand simple maps.”

Jay punches his arm gently. “He's _kind_. And I guess there could be an element of wanting all these lost kids to get off his lawn, if he's a very old god.” Jay puts the laptop to one side as Tim resumes his strumming. “What's that you're playing?”

“Just messing around with it. I keep forgetting to run this by you but I was thinking, maybe I could get work as a session musician somewhere? Just until I find another job.”

“Is there a lot of demand for session ukulele?”

“Can't hurt to try.”

“I guess it's a good idea, and you could probably keep doing it after you got a real job, too. Will you keep playing for a while? Just while I'm writing this? It's nice. It is kind of fitting.”

Tim kisses his cheek and reels off a few high notes, slow and soft. On paper the wind moves the shadows of the leaves across a grassy knoll, perfectly in tune. A boy named Ellis in a red T-shirt is walking through the woods and stumbles on an errant root. He limps on his twisted ankle and soon enough finds himself off the beaten track with briar and knotted branches closing in around him.

“Hey, Tim?”

He's on his knees in the corner, trying to find a spare socket for his keyboard. “Yeah?” He doesn't turn to look at Jay as he speaks, but his shirt has ridden up after sitting slumped against the couch, enough to show a little line of his dark red boxers. Jay smiles to himself.

“What was the thing you said yesterday? Like, the wind in the trees sounded like a conversation?”

“Did I say that?” He sits back down beside Jay, slotting in a cable. “Cool.”

“I thought it was poetic. Mind if I use it?”

“Go for it.”

“ _The trees above him whispered in the wind, a conversation of conspiracy against him”_. Always alliterative phrases that come to mind first from his childhood reading, something in the way the words seemed to bounce, all those babbling brooks and white woods and happy houses. Tim follows the same stop-start playing with his keys; a tune is dropped as soon as it's picked up, like sentences he can't finish and words he doesn't know how to say.

“You promised to play me a song, one time,” Jay whispers.

Tim falters onto a bum note and he blinks a few times, straightens, in some of the least convincing 'surprised' acting Jay's seen in years of collecting terrible B-movies. “Huh?”

“You heard. One night, while were still, you know, on the road. You said you'd play a song for me.”

“I didn't forget. I'm just not sure I know any that you'll know too.”

“Try me.”

Tim drums his fingers on the plastic edge of the keyboard. “Alright, but I'm not singing.”

“I'd like to hear it.” Jay draws his knees up to his chin and smiles.

“You wouldn't, trust me.” Tim laughs, sliding the keyboard to the side.

“This is stupid. Just wait until I'm playing in the background one day or something.” He looks to Jay. “Why are you so bothered about watching me play?”

”Because it's you, and because you said you would.”

Tim rolls his eyes, rests them on Jay's smile for a moment, then sighs and picks up the keyboard. “On the condition that you let me look at what you're writing afterwards.”

“Uh, okay. Deal.” Jay switches back to Sea Thing and settles with his head resting on his hand, waiting.

Tim sighs again, shaking his head, then lets the room settle into silence for a moment. His fingers fall one by one on the lower notes, descending slowly. His other hand taps a counterpoint on a higher scale. He has short fingers, a little rough and stained yellow from smoking, but they glide over the keys as he finds a tune – a crawling pace, but with a hopeful ascension. He bites his lip a little, and he's flexing one sock-footed toe to keep the rhythm. Jay's stomach swells.  _He's doing this for me_ . He could grab one of the stringed instruments and join in, but his greatest musical achievement to date was playing  _Love Me Tender_ on the xylophone and trying to avoid the path of other kids experimenting with alternate targets for a beater. He smiles, and sits back to watch.

Tim's wearing a present Jay asked Brian to pick up yesterday – a red and black plaid shirt, like the one he used to have, thrown out after the incident the other week. A pretty selfish present, considering how delectable he looks in it. Even more than he did yesterday wearing one of Jay's too small T-shirts, the fabric straining over his chest muscles as he struggling with the fishing line. His breath rises and falls in time with the bass notes of the song he's playing and he's never looked more handsome.

Tim hits a now-familiar motif that must be the chorus. A lock of hair falls in front of his eyes. He throws his head a couple times to knock it back, only for a few locks to slip forward in that way his hair always does when he tries to push it around. Jay presses his lips together to hide a smirk, and reaches out to stroke it back for him. Tim's fingers never falter, until he's lingering on one last low note.

The last note fades. He shoves the keyboard of his knee and cracks his knuckles. “That was a song. You happy now?”

“Yes,” says Jay, his voice barely breaking above a whisper. “Thank you. Did you write it yourself?”

“Was it that bad?”

“No! I really loved it. I meant it sincerely.”

“In that case, no. I'm not really a creator, I don't think. It was -”

“No, don't tell me! I want to find it myself. Have you got it on the computer?”

“Yeah, but there's a lot to get through.”

“I want to listen to more of your music and get to know the things you like, though.”

“Think you'll remember what this one song sounds like?”

Jay strokes the hand that fell upon the higher notes. “I'll always remember this.”

Tim laughs, running his hands through his hair and looking to the floor. “Now, your end of the bargain. Laptop, please.”

Jay hands it over in palms shaking and sweating more than they did on their first night in bed together. Of course Tim's brown eyes should be the first to see the first words he wrote in his new life, Tim will get it, he's been to the cliff too. But his stomach is grinding all the same.

“What are you smiling at? Oh God, it wasn't meant to be funny.”

“I'm not laughing, I promise. I'm just excited.” He does chuckle, then. “It's not something you'll have seen very often, I guess.”

Whenever little Jay showed any interest in anything artistic – drawing, messing with an instrument – passing family always leapt on it. _Hey, maybe Jay can turn into something for us to boast about after all_. This writer's worth so many million dollars. Chicks dig artists. But no-one ever told him the best thing about it; falling in love with your own creation. Finding a retreat, even if it's only a lonely clifftop by the light of the moon. Stories only he can tell, signposts along a path no-one else could so much as find.

Tim's already scrolling down for the next page. There was nothing to be nervous about.  _You can see my rough drafts and my wrong words and the mistakes I couldn't quite cross out – wow._ _ Save that one for the next story _ .

Tim's humming the tune he played softly to himself;  _he could totally sing, if he wanted to_ . He clears is throat and highlights a sentence. Which one?

“' _And the spaces between the words I couldn't find were just where yours fit in perfectly'_ – oh, Jay.”

Jay blushes at the crooked smile his brief detour into sentimentality earns him. “How do you know it's about you? I might've written it with my thesaurus in mind.”

“We don't have a thesaurus. ' _The light on the water so brilliant I can't see the way back from the edge -'_ ”

“Don't read it out!” Jay hisses.

“Sorry. I thought that was good, though. Very on point.” He turns back to the screen.

Something about putting what he feels into words makes the darkness of memory less monumental, and he can stand back to look at it from all angles, find the warped edges and cracks. _It's perfectly simple, dude. All you have to do is turn around and walk off somewhere else away from the cliff_

“Alright, I'm done.” He passes the laptop back.

Jay gulps. “What did you think?”

“I thought... I don't know how you do it. All it is this guy standing on a cliff for eight pages and it's not boring. And the part where the cliff starts breaking off, that's exactly how it feels when you think your time's running out. I hate to imagine you feeling that way, but if you can create something like this out of it, it's something.” He pauses. “I said 'something' twice in one sentence. I think I'll leave you with the words and stick to music.”

_He got it_ . But of course he did. He found the very scene and took the picture, which Jay's uploaded to the computer and flicks back to when he's stuck. With a little cropping to put the moon in the top-right corner of the frame and using the light on the water as a path leading the eye through the whole composition, it doesn't look half bad.

He switches back to the scene in the forest. He sketches in words the pain rocketing up young Ellis's leg with every step he takes through the tangled woods, typing faster as he fights through the sear of torn muscle to run from footsteps behind him. He spies a lighter patch in the trees up ahead and the hope gives him strength to keep running – but when he bursts through the thinner foliage, all he finds is a small clearing, dense trees stood to attention in a ring around it.

When Jay takes a break from typing Tim leans in, bringing the smell of new laundry and cigarette smoke with him. “I don't have much for this one yet, but you can read it if you like”

“Are you absolutely sure this is a children's book? It seems kind of dark.”

“As opposed to Kafka?”

“That's a fair point. But this is us, isn't it?”

“Well, I got the idea when we found him in the woods yesterday.”

“No, I mean, the whole thing. It's us. We think we're out of the woods and then, look, a whole bunch of new roots to trip on.”

Jay frowns. “I guess you're right. We're still just stuck in the woods, aren't we? I hadn't even realised that was what I was writing until now.”

“Can't hurt, I guess. Making them a little more aware that life isn't always easy. Read it to Grace when they all get back from town. I'll look away if you -”

“No, no, it's fine. You've got me thinking now. What can I use as a metaphor for depression and stuff?”

“You're the writer.”

“That doesn't mean I can't take some help.”

Tim stares off in the direction of the window. “There's always seasons, I guess. Winter, cold, dark, can you do something with that?”

“Yeah. Ellis was born in winter and things got dark too quick for him.” He types a quick note at the bottom of the document and hits shut down. “I think I'm done for today.”

“You've definitely got a paragraph.”

“Paragraph? There's nothing stopping me doing a whole _page_ every day.” He puts the laptop to one side and falls back against the couch. “Did I ever tell you how good you look in that shirt?”

“No, but I noticed you got all dressed up today. I wasn't just trying to bother you in the restaurant, the other day. That really does look great on you.”

Jay blushes – from the compliment, and also from the night Tim pushed him down and left the shirt on, going straight for his zipper. Overwhelming at the time, but now, maybe it's a good time to take advantage of having the house to themselves.

“So... the other thing about yesterday,” he says.

“I'm listening.”

Listening, but retuning something on his guitar. _He doesn't have any idea._ Perhaps Jay's distance has put the thought of sex so far from Tim's mind he's forgotten all about their aborted frisson in the kitchen yesterday. But it awakened something in Jay, heat and weight pressing down on him. The Thomas clan are doing Disney together, and he really does look stunning in that shirt.

“So, the others are out. They're definitely not coming back any time soon?”

Tim coughs and slings the guitar around the back of the couch. “Oh. That other thing about yesterday. Is that what you're hoping for putting the shirt on? Seems a little like wasted effort to me.”

“Not if I keep it on,” says Jay, quirking an eyebrow and turning red. _Did that really just leave my mouth?_

Tim's looking down at himself, after Jay put the shirt on him this morning and told him how good he looked; _is he checking himself out?_ “I will if you will.” He leans in and brushes up Jay's chest, wrapping the red tie around his balled hand, and Jay's insides are going to melt, and he pulls -

And the fabric slips around his neck, flapping around limp in Tim's frozen fist.

They snort into laughter in unison. Jay shakes his head and takes the tie back, fixing it as quick as he can with lust-numbed fingers. “There's always _something_.”

“I don't know why we bother,” says Tim, but he's gazing at Jay in a way that proves the statement a lie. “Come here.”

 _What the hell is all this porn dialogue?_ And yet, nothing they've said is untrue. Is this what happens to normal couples? They don't have to worry about saying the right thing and only say what they mean? Jay leans in, eager, and a hand on the back of his head pulls him closer. He's walking his own fingers over Tim's crossed thighs as their lips meet. The hand on the back of his head combs through his hair, and moves down to his neck to pull on his tie – loosening, not removing it. And from there, it's like on cog turning another – his hands on Tim's shoulders, pressing on the strength he carries there, his tongue in his mouth, pulling himself into his lap with his legs around his waist.

Roughened fingers pull his buttons apart, the light brush of skin and skin a wordless and shivering promise of more to come. He slides his hands over Tim's chest and reciprocates, squeezing his muscles as he goes. Jay laps over Tim's bottom lip and rocks their hips together, a gasp escaping his parted lips as Tim breaks their kiss and moves to his neck. He drifts over his throat and licks at the tender spot he bruised yesterday, and Jay moans – already. Shirts open they press together, Jay arching his back so he has more skin to rub against the warmth of Tim's, more neck for him to kiss, more spine to tingle, more need to cling around his neck and hang on.

“God, I've missed this,” Jay breathes.

Tim chuckles softly, his hot breath on Jay's neck putting a little more force into the movement of his hips. “So have I. You're sure you're ready? Tell me to stop and -”

Jay grabs his jaw and puts his mouth on his to stop the flow of words not needed, and darts in to attach himself to his neck, sucking Tim's skin until he yelps.

“The hell was that for?” Tim paws at the bruised skin, and with the little extra space between them Jay's eyes are drawn down to the crotch of his jeans straining.

Jay shrugs. “Revenge.”

“I still have to go to work tomorrow.” Tim narrows his eyes and pushes him back onto the ground.

They're laughing, locked into the kiss as soon as they hit the floor and scrabbling around each other's waistbands, tugging at zippers and kicking jeans off until they fall back, the thin fabric of their boxers the only thing between grinding hips and hot skin. Tim rests himself on one elbow to leave Jay's body open. Those musician's hands, trained to find the right note, wander up and down over ribs and hips, falling into a rhythm and making him sing.

Afternoon sun shines on the little room and warms the floorboards under Jay's bare back. All of him is bared – it was never like this before, always fumbling under blankets or in the back of a car or in a shower cubicle with no space to see each other. The brush of a hand over the warm strip just below Jay's navel has him sighing and letting his tensed thighs fall open, and Tim's hand strokes over the skin there too. Jay forces his eyes open and gives Tim the most pleading stare he can; _now_.

Tim nods once and scrabbles around for the supplies they secreted beneath their pillow. Jay shifts his hips and sighs. How is it something as everyday a man reaching over your head for a plastic tube can become the most charged, erotic thing ever? His boxers are pulled halfway down splayed thighs and it's cold with Tim's hands otherwise occupied, Jay's arms and chest prickling until they're both naked and Tim looms over him with an arm at either side of Jay's head and Jay's scrambling up to meet him and his warmth. As they fall back together Tim has two slick fingers inside him and Jay's arms are looped around his neck, hanging on for dear life, and by God has it been too long. How could they ever compare one drunken mistake to this?

And yet it was always Tim doing all the work while Jay lay beneath him taking his pleasure. There's something they've never tried, and whether or not Tim wants to see so much of him, there's only one way to find out. Using the leverage he has from his legs around Tim's waist Jay flips them over until he's straddling him, who blinks a couple times, then smiles his crooked smile and thrusts up from the floor. Jay grins to himself. _It's my turn to please_ you.

He bends forward and they kiss again, softer this time, with Jay shuffling down to plant small sucking kisses all the way over his chest with Tim's breath hitching as he moves, and over the curve of his belly, until he's low enough to take him in his mouth. Tim gasps and reaches down to cradle his head in one hand, while the other tugs at Jay's tie - take it deeper.

Jay complies as much as his short breath will let him and slips a hand between his own legs, a shuddering moan moving up his throat. Tim twitches and curses under his breath with the movement, so Jay keeps humming to himself as he moves his head up and down, flicking his tongue and using his palm to help out. “ _Jay..._ ” His name murmured low and breathy sends a shiver over his spine and he pulls away, cold enveloping bare skin, but only for as long as it takes to grab the box they hid beneath the pillows. He tears the foil with his teeth and throws it aside. _Why do people think this kills the mood, exactly?_ Tim lies spread out and panting with his hair fanned out behind him, hard as the floor beneath them and dying for it. Jay's hands are shaking as he rolls the rubber over him, almost as much as his thighs with the memory of how Tim feels inside him. They're so close, and it's been so long. He coats a shuddering Tim with more gel and tosses the tube to the side, crawling back up to sit astride Tim's waist. Some blood's making it all the way back up to his face, but he holds Tim's eye, keeps the crooked smile on his face.

As Jay lowers himself there's no pain, none at all, only the familiar deep burning for more and the thrill of Tim's groan. But his folded legs are bony and pallid against Tim's tan - would he be better on his back, where they can only feel and don't have to see see? But he does look so spectacular laid out on the ground, so Jay closes his eyes, whimpering and rocking slowly back and forth on him.

“ _Fuck_... Were you saving this up?” Tim stutters between gasps.

“Hmm, maybe,” Jay breathes, still screwing his eyes shut. “Is it good for you, like this?”

Tim laughs, light and breathless. “Look at you.” Gentle fingers run along Jay's jawline, squeezing his throat ever so slightly, one hand reaching up under the shirt on his back and one tracing over his ribs, both dropping and sliding up his thighs, until he cries out and moves his hips faster. Daring to open his eyes, there's Tim with his head leaning to one side and the floor is hard under his knees and his thighs are starting to strain but then Tim's hands grab his ass, pulling him forwards – not quite close enough to kiss, but enough to see the flush pricking up on Tim's face. All thanks to Jay. He's pulling on the tie again, winding one finger around it. Jay's hardness rubs against Tim's stomach and _there_ , that's it, the angle that forces the breath right out of him and forces his hips back and forth, even as his stretched thighs burn.

It's some distance outside the bounds of Jay's flexibility to stay this way but the deepening groans of pleasure he's conjuring keep him moving, and the burn in his groin and deep inside him. There'll be bruises and carpet burns and lactic acid tomorrow, but what does it matter? A mantra of his name finds him somewhere.

Jay leans back to take the pressure off his knees, and Tim's still sliding against the core of him, making him whimper when he catches a breath. There's nothing on him hidden now but there's no flush of shame, only washes of tingling all over his body - keep going, go hard. Tim clasps his hips in both hands and thrusts up into him and he _knows,_ this man fucking knows, Jay's trembling thighs and nails scrabbling at his torso tell him -

“Wait for me, Jay,” comes a desperate whisper, so he bites his lip and breathes deep, in and out – is this the kind of torment Tim put himself through, to be sure they both had their peak? It's agony, and it's perfect, and when Tim says his name like that – his enunciation a caress, soft and awed – he's close to losing it right then and there. He'd never have this with anyone else, and perhaps that's why he had to try and fail so badly with some stranger. This brave beautiful man chose Jay out of everyone he could've had fucking him on his floor, somehow. The frail body he starved and poisoned and tried to drain, and yet here it is, a vessel for his thoughts and his words and the euphoria that's spilling over him now, something to fill the wandering hands that can't get enough of him. If a body can survive to create something so beautiful as this day, then maybe... _Maybe I'm beautiful, too_.

He's sobbing and Tim's shuddering under him and the whole world turns to light. By the time he more or less has his breath back Tim's shrugged off the shirt and cleaned them both up and got a cigarette going after a couple exhausted failed attempts at reaching over his head for them. Jay rests his head on his stomach with his arms around Tim's waist, just enjoying him breathe, two heartbeats settling together.

Tim wraps his arms around him, half-asleep. The tan on his lower arms is a deeper brown, and the faint line left by the sleeves of his T-shirts bisects Jay's line of vision. He reaches out with trembling fingers to rub the skin where it graduates into a paler colour over the parts of him he'd usually hide.

Tim leans up. “You okay?”

“I'm good. It's just... your tan lines. They're nice.”

“I don't think I've ever met anyone as easily entertained as you.”

Jay presses a little more firmly at the skin, smiling. “It's just nice. I like touching the parts of you no-one else really gets to see.” Jay strokes him until some of the tension leaves his biceps, though the muscle under his fingers is still firm to the touch. A lone bird trills in the garden.

“I think we left the window open,” he whispers, though it's a little late for quiet.

Tim lifts his head and falls back down with a sigh. “Curtains, too.”

“Was I... loud?”

“You always are.”

“I'm sorry.”

Tim smooths his hair out of his eyes. “Don't be. It's kind of flattering to be able to do that. And, if we're still trying to do the thing where we're completely honest with each other, I guess I should tell you that was incredible.”

Against all odds Jay's face flushes even more, and he kisses the skin beside his head. “I love you. Oh, would you look at that? I forgot to take my socks off.”

“Never change, Jay. I love you, too.”

They don't move for a while, long enough that the angle of the couch's shadow has changed by the time Jay rolls onto his left side. He clears his throat before he speaks again. “I was thinking it's really past time I got back in touch with my parents.”

“Yeah. You should. When was the last time you even spoke to them?”

“I think... some time before I found you. I didn't want them being pulled into this.”

“More than two years?”

“It was better than putting them in danger. I haven't _seen_ them since that old apartment burned down.”

Tim strokes his hair. “I know. How do you think they'll be about it?”

Jay laughs and shifts his head, resting his chin on his hands, which are spread flat on Tim's stomach. “My mom will get mad at me for about five minutes and then, I don't know. Want to find out?”

“You're calling them right now?”

“Why not? If I still have the right number.” He sits up and starts picking up scattered clothes.

“They're not going to see you.”

“I know, but I'd still feel weird.” He sits down with the rumpled clothing folded in his lap. “I was going to ask if, whenever I go see them, you wanted to come, too.”

“Of course. I'm driving you, right? Unless they want to come here.”

“No, I want to go back there, just to see it again and pick up some stuff. Just for sentimental value, really. And I want you to come and meet them. As my partner. If you're ready for that.”

“Will they be okay about it?”

“Oh, yeah. I don't think I ever told them I like guys as well, but I never brought girls home, so I don't know if they'd even be surprised. If you went and sucked my dick under the dinner table they might raise a few objections, but even you have better table manners than that.”

“I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me.”

“I feel like I owe it to my teenage self to fuck someone in that bed, though. Finally.”

“I'll see what I can do.”

“I think it might still have the dinosaur sheets on, though, if that's a problem for you.”

Tim says nothing, only smiling softly and reaching out to touch his hair. Jay grins and leans into his hand.

“Either way, they're fine with me being...” He shrugs. “I don't really have a term for it. I like people occasionally.” He stretches, bones cracking. “Brian said he was doing some reading and he found a term for people who, sort of, only feel attracted to someone they've bonded with, but now I can't remember what it was.”

“That takes me back to college. He found me a load of articles on asexuality thinking he was being helpful.”

“Is that what you are?”

Tim shrugs. “I never really think about it unless you're around. What's he up to with all this?”

“What do you mean?”

“He's reading up on this, panic attacks, telling me all about PTSD the other day. Well. I guess it figures.”

“Like he's arming himself or something?”

“Yeah.”

Jay kisses the skin next to his lips. “You still haven't answered my question. Are we doing the whole meet the parents thing?”

“Well, alright, if you want me there.”

“I just said that. They'd love you, though. They'd see that you make me happy.”

Tim sits up with a groan and wraps his arms around him. “I do, do I?”

“Yes,” Jay whispers, clasping his hand. He stands, throwing off the warm mantle of Tim and he slips on his boxers and does up a couple of buttons of the shirt – they're mismatched, but he's changing before the others get home anyway. He grabs his phone from the table and presses call on the right name, pacing and biting his lip. His throat sours with every ring. What if they've changed number? In two years, they might. Maybe they moved to make a fresh start. What if they're ex-directory and he can't find them again? What if, in trying to keep them safe, he's done what he always does and fucked up and he never sees them again?

“Hello?”

_It's her_ . All the words he locked up for two years are buried too deep, too rusted to surface, his tight throat pushing them down.

“Hello?”

“.. Mom?”

Something falls over on the other end – like paper hitting the ground with a thump. “Jay?”

He's laughing, and he's swallowing sobs, tears streaming into his smile so much he can barely speak. “It's me,” he croaks.

“I've... It's been... _Where the hell are you?_ ”

She hurls her words like a hurricane, loud enough for Tim to hear and grin from the couch. “I'm fine, mom.”

“But where the hell have you been? Two years, Jay Merrick, _two years_ -”

“I know. I'm... sorry.”

She sighs, like escaping steam. “No, no, baby, I'm sorry. This, God...” Creaking wood crackles over the line as she takes a seat, probably on the little table the clock rests on. “This isn't going like I planned. I've run through this so many times but I didn't know how I'd... my Jay!”

“It's me,” he stammers again, breathless. “I want to come and see you.”

“But where are you?”

“I'm in a small town in the next state. I'm living with a couple guys I knew back in college, friends of mine. We've got a nice place together.” Tim is lying stretched out on the sofa, giving a tentative thumbs up and smiling. “Actually, one of them is... well. He's my boyfriend.”

The first time he's said it aloud, and it's met with a quick gasp from the other end of the phone. “I... When can we come see you? At your house. You have a house. You have a boyfriend. You're talking to me.”

“Don't cry, mom,” Jay laughs, though he's wiping his own face with his sleeves. “We want to come see _you_. There's some stuff I'd like to pick up from my old room.”

“I'm free Thursday and Friday next week,” says Tim, yawning and stretching. “We could drive there on the Wednesday night?”

“You hear that? We can come next Wednesday. I'll tell you all about it then.”

“Of course, if you want. But you're safe? You're not in any trouble?”

Jay turns his wrist, the patch of carpet until recently covered in detritus from their fight in the corner of his eye. Tim crosses in front of him to put some coffee on wearing only boxers, stretching and lounging against the counter. “No. I'm fine. There's nothing to worry about. I'm even sort of happy. Where's dad?”

“Your father's working today. He's one bad day away from throwing in the towel but oh, I can't wait to see his face when I tell him our Bluejay is okay!”

“I'm twenty-six years old. How many times do I have to tell you?”

On the other end she's sobbing, she'll be covering her mouth in that way she does – is her hand more lined since he's been gone? Is she still wearing all the coloured rings she used to, even in her grief? “I love you, Jay.”

“Love you too, mom. I know I haven't exactly been the best at showing it.”

“You're not hurt?”

“No, I'm fine.” He pauses. “Sort of. Physically I am, I guess. I kind of had some – I was going through – oh, okay, this isn't a good topic for a phone conversation, but you're going to see my wrists anyway, so -”

She cuts him off with a yelp. “Jay, no.... Why would you?”

“I had some issues going on, I was pretty out of it for a while. But I'm seeing a therapist and she's really good, you'd like her sense of humour, I think. I'm getting better. And it was _nothing_ you or dad ever did, please believe that if nothing else. I made some stupid choices but I'm trying to fix this.”

“My lovely boy.”

“Brian gave me these sweatbands to cover it but I don't think you'd buy it if I turned up in those and... okay, I'm kind of babbling now. I don't know what else to say.”

“Just keep talking, Jay, just let me hear your voice. Is Brian the one you're... with?”

“No, no. He's just some jock who lives with us. He's a friend, he's a good guy. My partner's name is Tim.”

“Tim. And you're bringing him with you?”

“If that's okay?”

“Of course, of course. Have you been together very long?”

“Um... a while.” They didn't do things so cleanly as to have anniversaries for anything. Did they have their first dates exploring an abandoned hospital together? Should he count from the first time they kissed, the first time they came together a whole ten minutes later, or the other night, where he said “I love you” and meant it? “He let me come stay with him a few months back and things kind of went from there. You'd like him, though. Do you have the same email? I want to send you a ton of pictures of the house.”

“I'd drive right there tonight, only we had to sell the car a while back. We don't really have the money for a train or anything either.

“I understand. But we'll be there, next Wednesday. That's not even a week.”

And she's sobbing again. “I never once gave up on you, you know that? They said it would be easier but I knew you'd find your way back to us. You're too good to just...”

Her voice is chipping and hacking into barely human wails, and inside Jay, something's murmuring; _liar. You're no good. Look at all the bodies piled up behind you_.

“I'm dreaming. I'm going to wake up any second.”

“It's not a dream. It's me. A week from now we're going to be sitting having coffee and you'll fuss about me not using a coaster. Tim gets really annoyed with it, too.”

“Please keep talking, Jay. Stay with me for a while.”

And he does. Tim brings him coffee and he sips it while she tells him everything the neighbours have done, about their new cat who can't wait to meet him too, trials and tribulations with the printing company his father runs, the way the sun's been setting gold and purple over the rose bushes in the back garden this week. The same sun is sinking by the time he's done, with Tim reminding him that Brian and his nearest and dearest are on their way back and probably wouldn't appreciate an eyeful of his skinny legs and sex hair. Jay rings off, and heads to their bedroom to change.

 


	27. Reprise

_I long to be as careless as I once was  
_ _But how do I vapour this pressure off?  
_ _Pelicans go where they dare  
_ _Let this be the shortest day now of my year  
_ _Into the arms of adventure  
_ _And wade in the salt, the salten air  
_ _The morning mist clears  
_ _Open air_

\- Patrick Wolf  


“What's the use in folding it?” his father says. “The whole case is going straight in the laundry once we get back.”

Brian leans around the door and rolls his eyes. An open suitcase lies on the bed, unironed fabric limbs in primary colours sprawled at all angles like a rave's going on in there. “I rounded up all the fishing stuff for you. It's in the trunk of the car.”

“See? _Someone's_ making himself useful,” his mother hisses. Standing back from her own regimented luggage, she puts her hands on her hips and turns to him. “Thanks for doing that. You look nice today, sweetie. Ready?”

Brian holds the door for them. In the window across the room he stands,clean-shaven and slim in his new navy shirt. He gives himself a sly wink and crumples into laughter, earning him a raised eyebrow from mom. They file out of the house, waving goodbye to Jay, who's sitting with Grace. Perhaps she'll be more entranced by his deer photos the fifth time around, though her wandering eye says not. Tim said his goodbyes this morning before work, and turned red when his mother kissed his cheek and told him what a good host he was and how the three of them should head out to their place soon, there's deer in the back yard and all the barbecue they could want. She heard all about his trip to the coast the night they got here – certain motivating details omitted, of course – and she hugged him or doing something just for himself, like she said to. Brian kept quiet, like he did all those times she took in stray cats and puppies who couldn't be homed.

Now, it's extending to his father, who's pushed into the driver's seat and petted on the head. A last meal together. Without Grace, because she draws on chalkboards if you leave her for a second, they'd said, but with a strained laugh that used to accompany bad news about grades or holiday money. Not that he can blame them. You'd kind of want to keep tabs on someone who vanished on you for eight years without so much as a note and then turned up again several pounds lighter with no explanation.

Brian buckles up in the back and the key in the ignition jolts him away from sepia childhood. The town flashes past around them. Loving faces from the past superimposed onto snatches of his worst memories, shops selling things he can't afford and bars full of people who'd side-eye him for not saying much; all outside the car is a film reel like they used in old movies. It's all brighter in the sunlight than it was when he walked home the other day. How will it look if his plan comes through? He could tell them over lunch, watch them nod and cheer for him – they would, wouldn't they? They'd be happy he was happy, and if nothing else, they'll know he's still him if he has some ambition, right? Surely they wouldn't laugh. They wouldn't think he was out of his depth. Would they?

In daylight and without the candle glow in the windows, the restaurant is a little colder to look at, but at least it's plain to see. Not like peering through a wax smoke haze to check if Ren was there, should he wait outside, what's so embarrassing about going in on his own, he'd have thought nothing of it before, and so on. Ren in her red dress, looking at him like a lost puppy. He shudders.

The prices of the specials are scrawled in loose, loopy hand on the chalkboard outside. He sighs. _I should be taking them out and paying for them_. Maybe it'll happen when he's graduated. They choose a table by the window, Brian following behind with hunched shoulders, like a fucking kid. The waiter's face is diamond-shaped and not familiar, but might someone else remember the guy who fell over and cried outside not so long ago? He hides behind a menu, scanning tactically. What to choose that won't make them think he's purposefully picking a cheap option? One of the girls drops cutlery and little glass finger bowls with wisps of lemon floating in them, and a smile works its way through the tension in his face. Tim drinking out of a finger bowl... So easy to picture his scowl, his cat-like search for someone else to blame. Even so. Tim in a restaurant in a shirt and tie, out and proud with his boyfriend. _And no-one deserves it more_.

“So how's this job of yours going?”

 _Don't worry them unnecessarily. Don't make them throw any more money at you_ . “It's early days, you know? I'm still getting used to, like, being needed somewhere and getting up every day.” _No lies_.

Neither of them say anything, but a wince passes between them. His mother fiddles with her napkin and his father takes a sip of water, swilling it like it's a fine wine, but without any useful tongue-loosening properties. Around the room there's too little light on the art or décor to allow for comment to take their minds off the elephant-shaped hole in the room where his past lives and lurks.

“It could be worse, though,” he says after a jovial chorus in Italian has passed from the speakers. _Still not a lie_.

“I'm proud of you for doing it, son,” says his father, slowly. “Are you settling in okay, making friends? Girls on the horizon?”

“Well, that's a reassuring question after the other day.”

“What do you mean?” His mother leans in with a frown.

“I've been struggling to come up with a polite way of saying “No, we're not having threesomes every night after doing our drugs”.”

She chokes on her mineral water.

“You okay?”

She nods, still spluttering. “You know, out of everything, I forgot how funny you can be.”

 _I can't do anything in a restaurant without making a scene_. The girl behind the bar in the corner is looking at them with a furrowed brow, and it's enough to bring a blush to his face, but he looks her right in her pretty dark eyes and smiles.

She wipes her cheeks and rests a hand on his. “I don't care what you do behind the bedroom door if everyone's having fun. They're a cute couple.”

“I'm... glad you think so. I'm sorry about the other day, you know. I feel like I should've told you.”

His father shrugs. “Makes no difference. Except I would prefer that your three-year-old niece didn't interrupt any more intense make-out sessions, you know?” He clears his throat. “Whatever the gender of the people involved.”

“Did you expect us to care? We thought your brother was gay for years. I don't think it's a bad thing for Grace to know same sex couples can be stable, too,” his mother says, fussing over a napkin in her lap after dabbing at her lip.

Brian comes close to choking on a lettuce leaf at the notion of Tim and Jay being “stable” in any way. Or is that unfair? They're sitting in the same restaurant he used as setting for his disastrous date, yet the two of them had a great time here. _In their own unique way, of course_.

“I can't believe I'm just sitting here talking to you guys like this.” He leans back in his seat, just as his meatball starter arrives.

“You're not a kid anymore,” says his father. Smiling at first, but his face falls as his eyes meet Brian's and maybe he's seeing all the crinkled lies around them now.

Brian swallows, and busies himself wrapping spaghetti around a fork. _You had to, didn't you? Say something and make it awkward_.

His mother clears her throat. “No. He's not. He's got a place of his own now. So, how did you guys all meet? We so rarely heard from you back in college.”

“I helped Tim find the music department one time.” There's not much in his life that he's proud of, but that's one good deed to take with him. Tim was shaking as he wandered like a lost puppy across the campus, playing Russian roulette with buildings that might not be the right one. He said, some time later after a few beers, that he'd have walked out then and there if not for Brian's direction, and probably never touched an instrument again. And that would've been a tragedy. The house has been full of music this week and with an instrument in his hand Tim's less rigid, not so wont to frown – he even keeps a smoke out of his mouth long enough to play a song.

“I met Jay through a mutual friend.” He swallows the lump in his throat Alex always precipitates – _Jay's right. We shouldn't pretend he never happened_. “We were both involved in the film he was trying to make. Really pretentious student film stuff, you know the type, looking back I'm glad it didn't work out. But it was fun, for a while. Hanging out after a shoot, messing around with Tim's instruments. This one time we all got caught out in the rain, the power went out, and all we had was this battery-operated keyboard to entertain us. I can still hear that stupid beat now. I... don't really know what else to tell you about college. It's not like I was there all that long. And it's not like it's any use to me at my bar job, now.”

 _Please don't cry again. Not here. They're doing something nice for you_.

His father stretches over the table and takes his hands. “We don't care about you having a flashy career, son. We never did. So long as you do what makes you happy and you don't leave us again.”

They move apart when a waiter comes to clear their empty plates. His mother whispers thanks, then turns back to Brian. “We always tried to let you know what was in your heart mattered, not what's in your bank account.”

“Only, don't end up like your brother. He's thinking of voting Republican next time.”

A collective shudder passes around the table; if the phrase “end up” can be applied to Paul with his suit and his mortgage, then maybe Brian and his bar job stand a chance after all.

“I know that. But I've... got something in the works. I haven't done anything more than plan for it, and I want to speak to Tim and Jay first because they'd know more about it than I do, but it's something.”

“Good luck, son, and let us know what's happening.”

Brian nods, his chest tightening. _Fuck_. It's the first time he's said anything about it outside of his own head. _This is really happening. I am actually thinking about doing this_. His wrist aches already from all the form-filling, but he shakes his head. There'll be time to worry about it after this pizza.

Back at the house, the curtains are open and Jay's sitting in a pool of sunlight with his laptop open, typing a hailstorm. The TV's off. His parents go back into the bedroom to pick up their luggage, and Grace is sitting with a bowl of cereal. Her left eyebrow hasn't moved from the lofty angle she raised it to the moment she was unleashed on poor Jay.

“You guys have fun?” he calls, without looking up from the screen.

“Yeah. How you doing here?”

“We're reading all about Reggie, aren't we, Grace?”

Grace sits and crosses her arms. “I want to know what happens to the beetle man.”

“No, you don't,” says Jay. “Trust me, you don't. Look, how about I show you how to draw a deer?”

“I don't like deer. They mess up our garden.”

“Reggie likes you. He told me so.”

Grace rolls her eyes. “Deer don't _talk_. You're being silly.”

Jay throws his hands up. “You're onto me.”

“She's a sharp one,” his father says, shuffling past with a suitcase. “Made the mistake of asking her once if her ostrich toy was going to fly.”

“It's made out of plastic,” says Grace, rolling her eyes. “And ostriches can't fly, anyway. Grandpa is silly.”

“Grandpa is silly,” says his mother, nodding, ushering her husband out of the door.

“You should probably start getting your things together, lady,” says Brian. He makes a start, picking up a couple colouring books lying open on the table and marshalling scattered crayons. Grace sits still, a small and grumpy statue, until she's called to the car with the promise of gas station candy on the way.

“See you soon, Jay!” his mother trills from the door. “And remember what I said about the deer.”

He waves and resumes his typing. Grace trots to the car and climbs into the back seat; the same back seat he and Paul sat in once, still stained with the blueberries they were misguidedly given to share on one of many picnic adventures. The car's kept going this whole time, and it's not as shiny as once it was, but there's impressive miles behind it. She winds the window down and leans out, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Your house is cool, Uncle Brian. It's not as cool as grandma's, but I like it anyway.”

“Thanks, kid. Come and see us again soon, alright?”

He gives her a final wave and heads up to the front of the car for his kiss on the cheek, only to find his mother with her hands on her hips.

“Thank you for having us, sweetie.”

Brian frowns. “That's not your thank you face.”

“When did my firstborn get perceptive?” She sighs, and leans in closer to lower her voice. “Look... Now is probably not the time, but I couldn't just leave without saying something. Sweetie, are you absolutely certain everything's okay? There's no nice way of putting this, but I was talking to Jay and I saw his arms and -”

“Jay was having some problems earlier in the year. He's doing much better, seeing a therapist, looking for work, and he's got his writing. It's all good.”

“That's good, yes. He's such a sweet guy, and I'm glad he's on the mend. But what about you? Sometimes I see you looking off to the side when we ask how you're doing and... I can't stand to think of you ever hurting yourself.”

“I won't.” He nods, and is his chest puffing out? _That goes for beating yourself up all the time, too. She wouldn't want that_. “I've always been aware that bad things happen to people, mom. I'm not going to give up on life just because I have a little more evidence in my face. You know I can handle myself. And like I told you, there's something I'm working on. It's kind of related, actually.”

She frowns again, but leans in for the kiss. “Call me soon, okay?”

“Will do.”

The door slams, and Grace waves at him out of the back seat. The windows darken as they turn the corner, swallowed up by the woods around their house. Tall pines, mostly, probably housing all kinds of critters in their roots and roofs. Dappled light on the ground and whispers in the leaves. The smell of damp wood and wildflowers. Peaceful. _Something I miss_. But now the late sun is throwing a long shadow over the road, reaching out to the car getting smaller and smaller, so he goes back to the house and flops down next to Jay.

“I'm wiped out now. Too much talking.”

Jay smiles. “I think it's the most talking I've done since college.”

“You did great, by the way. Coming out of your shell and talking to everyone, and I think Grace really loves you.”

“That's cute.” He drums his fingers on the edge of his keyboard, then shakes his head and puts it to the side. “I always wanted to be an uncle. I'd never inflict myself as a father on someone, but I always liked the idea of kind of time-sharing them. Not having any siblings kind of puts a crimp on that.”

“I wanted a family. I guess it's probably off the cards now, though.”

“Don't say that. You're not even thirty yet. Um... Did I mention we're going to visit my family next week?”

“No? That's great!” Does his smile look as false as it feels? Having the place to himself to mooch about in isn't exactly going to be a party, but on the plus side, it means a few days of heading to bed without the choice of Tim's creaking bedsprings or the same handful of classic rock songs on his phone for a lullaby. “Are you excited?”

“Of course. Kind of nervous, too.”

“You know they're just going to be absolutely overjoyed to see you, right?”

“I know, but it's just hard to imagine how it'll go. I never thought I'd live to see them again for the longest time, and I keep thinking they'll be mad at me.”

“My mom was, for about two minutes.” She beat her fists on his chest and demanded to know exactly where he'd been, but not for long, before they collapsed together crying on the floor.

“So was mine, when I called. But not for long. I think she got scared of making me run away again.”

Brian nods, slow, and sighs like the weight of the world is settling in on his slimmer shoulders. “As much as I hate to say it, I think we're going to have to play on that a little. Probably forever.” A bitter little laugh escapes from the side of his mouth.

“Yeah, I know. I don't want them asking too many questions, for their sake as much as mine. I'll talk with you guys. That's enough.”

“Is your therapist still buying the stalking story?”

“I think so. There's enough parallels to make it believable. Maybe it'll get testy eventually but for now I'm showing enough progress that she's happy to let me go at my own pace with origin stories and stuff.”

“That's good. And it kind of ties in with something I wanted to talk to you about – both of you.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“I'm not saying it twice so I'll leave you in suspense 'til Tim's home.”

“Is this a prank?”

Brian chuckles. “I don't know. Maybe it is.” He stretches and stands. “I'm going to make some dinner. Spaghetti okay for you?”

Jay hops up and follows him over to the kitchen counter. The whole place smells like a herb garden by the time the car pulls up in the drive and the door slams a few minutes later. Jay slips off the counter and runs to the door, their shadows stretched across the room showing a kiss on Tim's cheek. Brian smiles, but hangs back. Coming in silent is code for a bad day and Tim composing himself for a couple minutes. He drops his jacket by the door and collapses into an armchair, his head lolling to the side. Brian's learned better than to ever ask anything so inane as “Bad day?”, like retail work offers any other sort.

Tim is still slumped in a heap, but he's smiling again, taking Jay by the hand when he brings him a glass of water. Are those delicate, long-fingered hands really the same ones that clutched empty spirit bottles and flung ornaments at the man holding them not so long ago. _Progress_. Here's the proof of it, and with that, Brian clears his throat and walks to stand in front of them.

“If you're not too tired, there's something I'd really like to talk to you about.”

“I'm all ears,” says Jay.

Brian sits down on the chair opposite, toying with a wooden spoon still in his hand. To say this out loud makes it real. And once he starts, he won't be able to stop – there'll be too much money changing hands, and too much at stake. He can't afford another half-finished college course on his resume.

His breath lodging like a cork stopper in his chest, he begins.

“Okay. I think I have a plan.”

“A plan?” Tim sits up straighter. “That usually means you're up to something.”

“No, it's serious. It's about what we're going to do for money. What I'm going to do, anyway.”

“I thought you were trying to stay in your job?” says Jay.

“I am, and I could still work there if I did the thing.”

“Are you going to tell us?” Tim rests his empty cup on the floor and leans forward.

“Okay, well, I had an idea.” _A stupid idea. What the hell makes you think you're cut out for this? You looked up a couple articles online and it's supposed to make up for your complete and total lack of sensitivity?_ He shakes his head. _It's come this far already_. “Remember the other day, Tim, when you said I did well reading up on stuff to help Jay?”

Jay nods. “You did good.”

Brian presses his lips together a moment. “And then you were joking about how I should be a therapist or something?”

More nodding.

He swallows. “Think I could do it for real?”

There should be some swell of dramatic music for this. Instead, there's no noise but for a late bird outside. Tim and Jay are watching him the way TV doctors watch cancer patients, looking for a happy way to break the bad news. They could just say “No” and spare him the agony. But their eyes roving across the floor suggest a long-winded let-down, the worst kind. He sinks in his seat

Tim coughs. “How long have you been thinking about this?”

He's got his answer – why stick around for a list of reasons why he's wrong? He should just shuffle off and never speak of it again. “A week or so I guess. Since the day before my parents came. I'm not rushing into a decision, obviously. I just wanted to run it by you two since you have more experience with this than I do.”

“What's brought this on?” says Jay.

“I guess what you guys said fed into something I was already thinking. I'm no good to anyone panicking behind a bar all day and beating myself up over things that went wrong that I can't change. And then I thought, maybe everything that went wrong doesn't have to be for nothing. This way I can help people who're going through the same thing.”

Tim sighs. “You realise you'd have to go back to school, right? For a long time.”

“I'm aware. That was the first thing I looked at. I'd be willing to do it , though.”

Tim falls silent, chewing his lip. “I don't doubt that you'd be willing to do it at first. It's a lot of work, though. A lot of _money_.”

“I think my parents would support us financially.  And I could still try to hold down a job, if I was serious about doing it.” There's no getting way from it. “You don't think I am, do you?”

Tim pulls out a cigarette. Jay remains silent. _So it's that bad, is it?_

“I believe that you really want to do it,” he says, breathing out smoke. “Right now, anyway. It's just that you kind of do have a history of getting really worked up about something and letting it fall by the wayside.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, when I first knew you, you wanted to be a rock star, then you were considering running professionally, then you were going to act -”

“Hey! I put work into the acting! It's not my fault it kind of got cut short. And anyway, this is completely different. All those other things were typical big dreams, you know? This I could really _do_.”

Jay rubs his neck, mumbling to the floor; “I think psych jobs are kind of competitive, too.”

“Does that mean I shouldn't even try?”

Tim leans forward. “I don't want to discourage you, particularly after how your last job turned out. Though I remember you being excited about that at the start, too.”

“I said, I'd give it time and think it through more.”

“You're also going to have to consider the fact that you have whole years you can't account for. You could get all the grades, but they're not going to let you work in medicine without a background check.”

“Well... I'm going to try getting therapy for myself. I'm sure there's some disorder they could pin on me to explain it, and if I could show I had it under control. I don't know.”

Jay clears his throat and Brian tenses, waiting to hear what he has to say, but he seems to think better of it and covers his mouth, chin resting on his hand. Spaghetti sauce wafts over from the kitchen and Brian's stomach growls – the only sound in the room. Until Jay breathes in and coughs again.

“I think you could do it.”

“Is this a joke?”

“I wouldn't joke about something like this. I think you might be good at it.”

“Any ideas why? Because I'm not feeling great about it just now.”

“You did good with me. I really mean that. No-one else thought of the sweatbands and stuff, maybe because you know what it's like better than they do. You're not the most tactful person and sometimes you're way off with what I'm thinking but if you got the right training, if you could work out the legality... I think you'd be good.”

Tim squeezes Jay's hand. “I've seen my share of awful therapists. Jay's right – a lot of them just don't get it and no textbook in the world is going to hep them with that. But you would. I know your heart's in the right place here. It's just a big commitment and a lot of money for a whim and I want you to think carefully about it.”

Brian demonstrates by falling silent. _Why did I automatically expect them to think it was a great idea?_ Tim knows this stuff better. It seemed so much simpler when it stayed in his head – did it see more exciting as a half-finished plan no-one could know about? But it's not about excitement. _It's about no-one suffering like we have_.

“But it's like the other day, remember? When you asked me how I could be right all the time if I'm as stupid as I think I am?” Jay stops, fiddling with a hole torn in the knee of his jeans. “No-one ever put it to me like that before, and it made me think. You kind of did what Andrea does where she makes me want to prove her wrong so I end up doing the thing, where trying to encourage me to do the thing doesn't work.”

“Thanks, Jay. I don't think all my patients -” _did I really just think that?_ “- are going to be as contrary as you, though.”

“She doesn't run on being contrary. She listens and finds out the way that works best for you. I think if she wasn't a therapist, she could've been a spy.”

“You should make that the plot for your next book.”

“Maybe I will. She's kind of like Miss Moneypenny over Tim.”

“But that's another idea I had – something I could do even if I couldn't find some reason for disappearing. We could do, like, workshops for kids with mental illnesses. You can do music, I'll do theatre, Jay can hold a book stall or something.”

Jay smiles. “I'd be down for it.”

Tim nods. “If you really, really want to do this, how about we look at college information together?”

Jay nods. “Next time I have an appointment I'm asking Andrea if she has any kind of resources.”

“And this is _our_ house, even if it's my name on the lease. You have a roof over your head here as long as you want it.”

Brian nods, blinking away tears. “Ask if her if she's maybe taking on new patients, too.” He sighs. “Or maybe I shouldn't be doing this, not when I'm ill.”

Jay nods. “Did I tell you I was thinking of maybe putting some writing online?”

“Jay, that's a great idea.”

“Well, I'll make a deal with you. I'll do it if you spend the rest of the week looking at colleges.”

Brian sniffs. “Okay. It's on.” He reaches over to shake Jay's hand, and he other man is trembling just as much as he is, but their grip is warm and strong nonetheless.

“Pasta's boiling over,” says Tim helpfully, making no move to sort it out.

Brian jumps over to the stove, removing the sizzling pan and tipping its worm-wriggling contents into a strainer. His stomach has tightened to the point where slimy strands of spaghetti look about as appetising as leftover dishcloth, and the smell of the sauce is overpowering. The window has clouded from escaping steam, the same steam drawing sweat from his brow. He couldn't do anything until next the next school year started, but it's enough time to save some money and do his research and maybe work on his own issues – enough that he could go back and make some friends, go to parties, be a person again.

“You know what? There's something else I want to do.” He walks back to the couch and grabs his phone from the coffee table.

“You could've at least brought the food over,” says Tim, still making no move to get out of his chair.

Brian flips him off behind his back and scrolls through until he finds the number he needs. Where did waiting ever get him? The tension in his shoulders grows with every ring. This needs to be done. Even if nothing comes of it, he can at least apologise and prove he's more than an illness.

“Hi, Bottlenose Bar.”

It's Laurel, in her bright customer voice and not the harsh tone she used on him last time they met. _Whatever happens, remember you're doing the right thing. What more is there to do?_

“Hi, Laurel. This is Brian.”

“Brian.” A pause. “How are you?”

“I'm... okay. Resting up, mostly.”

“Good, that's probably what you need.”

“Maybe. Uh... right. I don't know how you feel and I totally understand if you don't want me to come back, but I had to call to show you I'm not that person.”

She sighs. “Some time over the next few days I was planning to call you anyway. Listen. I feel like I've been unfair to you. You're clearly having problems and I think you should've warned us, but I worry I was too harsh.”

“Um... I guess I would've been the same in your situation.” Tim and Jay are leaning in as though they're trying to hear, so he moves back to the kitchen to stir the sauce. “In truth I didn't realise how bad this problem, this anxiety -” he might as well say it, not dance around it “- was until you found me on the floor. I wanted to call just to say I'm sorry I let that happen.”

“And I'm sorry we couldn't make an environment where you felt able to say something. Can you think of anything we could do to help?”

Is this some kind of feedback survey in case they accidentally hire another screw-up to replace him? “It was nothing you did. It was me trying to avoid the problem. It's kind of symptom of this that you get embarrassed to talk about it and think it's all in your head.”

“Well, it is all in your head,” says Laurel. “You have a mental illness, that's kind of the definition.”

He laughs. _I have a mental illness_. He's never summoned the guts to say it before, not in so many terms. That didn't make it any less true. Yet it isn't the banging of a judge's gavel – it's just words. “I guess. But I'm looking at getting help for it, not just running away the whole time.”

“That's a very brave thing to do. In light of that, do you think working in the kitchens might be easier for you?”

 _Wait..._ “Are you serious?”

“Do you really think I'd joke about this?”

“No, no, I'm sorry.” _Pull yourself together, expecting to be fired isn't professional_. “I could give it a try. It's not like I can do worse than I already have.” He leans against the counter, legs weakening.

“Your work was just fine, when you were in the right head space to do it. You could come in and give it a try next Wednesday, if you like? We needed some work doing on our website, and it turns out Luke from the kitchens is one of those people who can code anything but can't polish cutlery without messing up, so there's a space.”

“Okay, I guess, uh... what time do you need me?”

“Only if you're sure. I'm just thinking that you'd be away from the public, and I'm sure you'd get on with Tony just fine – he'll be glad to have someone competent with him, at last. Get here for nine and we'll see what happens.”

“Sure. I will. And thanks.” She rings off, and Brian slumps back into the seat.

“You know, I'm actually hungry enough to serve myself.” Tim gets up and clatters around in the kitchen. “Assuming that was your work, I hope you'll be a little more attentive.”

Jay catches his eye and grins. They say it in unison, hushed whispers in the same strained London accent; “ _It's fucking raw!_ ”

 


	28. Dirge

_I tell myself I will not go  
__Even as I drive there_  
\- Big Black  


“ _Moonlight, falling at the first hurdle”_. No matter what comes after, that's a damn good opening. The only light around, obscured by rain on the window – even the stars are against him. Jay has a finger paused on the track pad. All he has to do is bat it gently. The story text is in the box, formatted just how he likes it, _'With the Tide'_ sits resplendent at the top as a title, and he has a cup of tea ready to sit back and wait for hits to roll in. It's only a free fiction website, after all. He can make further edits any time he likes, when the right words start to wave in face yelling “Pick me!” more often. _No problem_.

Yet every time he readies his arm to hit the post button his stomach swoops and the whole thing becomes a terrible idea. _It is a terrible idea_. Hasn't the morning been stressful enough? Another document was open today, one he wrote in Tim's lap before he left for work. His last shift, and he still found time to force Jay to put up a resume. Strong arms around him got him through the cold sweat accompanying a page full of excuses – not that Tim was taking any.

“We're getting this over with”.

“We could, or we've got time to get back under this blanket and fuck.”

“Jay. Ten minutes and we'll be done with this.”

“Can we do it when we get home from my parents' place? I'll be concentrating better then.”

“Jay. Grinding on me isn't going to work.”

“Ugh. Can I just -?”

“You'll feel better for getting it over with.”

“You know, I like it when you boss me around a little.”

“Jay.”

But the resume is done, and of course Tim was right – he has a typed page detailing his years since college spent 'storytelling'; _where is the lie?_ Everything else that passed between them is decidedly less finished and served mostly to leave Jay crossing his legs and fidgeting. He rubs the collar of the shirt he's wearing and pulls it up to his nose to breathe in the cocktail of nicotine and car seat leather and cut-price cologne that sends him reeling, somehow. After the car pulled out of the drive, he put on one of Tim's shirts, the green and blue flannel, and paced the house in nothing else but boxers. The mirror would show a skinny kid playing dress-up in a lumberjack shirt that swamped him, but spread out on the couch by himself, he could be small and delicate and losing his mind with a head of thick black hair between his bare legs. Or, better, spreading Tim out underneath him, all open, all his.

It's how they've spent their nights since, Tim on his back with bent knees and Jay above him, legs parted as far as the narrow reach of the couch will let him. He grins and falls back against the cushions. Taking a dick in his ass could be pleasurable, Wikipedia and science said so. They never said it could be beautiful, but that's the only way to describe skin on skin in powder blue moonlight, breathy whispers of his name and a breathing chest for a pillow after. Jay is too thin, but perhaps that's not all he is. His eyes are a blue not quite piercing, but brighter than most, and his hair is soft when he reaches up to rub his neck. And his thin body can still make pretty shapes when he arches and writhes on top of a strong man, the glitter in Tim's wide eyes says so.

 _His eyes. Like deep cups of black coffee. Just what I want to wake up to in the morning. Oh, that's_ good. _I should write that down and -_

And this is a perfect example of the procrastination Tim's been trying to shake him from. He straightens. _Just post it. Post it, then you can go jerk off and shower and do something fun before you leave_. He taps over to the 'Post' button – _wait_. _What if they've tried to call with directions or instructions or something?_ His mother now, fretting he's packed clean underwear and enough water for the road, making sure Tim can find his way on the serpentine path to their town – or maybe they'd like to go the pretty way by the waterfall, like they did when he was a boy? And his father in the background telling her to chill out, or something similar he thought the kids were all saying now. Jay laughs to himself. He never shuffled around the kind girls who felt sorry enough to ask him out at college for more than a couple weeks, so Tim will be the first to grace the Merrick household as a nervous lover. Sometimes he'd picture bringing home a girl – always a girl, like society wanted, who always wore a summer dress and had freckles and looked at the floor shyly. Never a handsome man in a lumberjack shirt making quips and asking for an ashtray. Never the proud hand on his back.

 _Never with so many lies_.

 _Whoa. That one came out of nowhere_. And that's right where it's heading back again. Jay shakes himself. _Calls. Okay_. He scrabbles for his phone and swipes the screen. Nothing but the time – a whole half-hour has vanished since he opened the story. He hovers over 'Post'. Maybe he should call his parents, just to check everything's still okay. He presses the number, but hangs up when it goes to voicemail. _No more excuses_. Time to post the story. Only... hearing human voices might be encouraging, not this empty house echoing around him. Who else's number does he even have? Tim is working, and so is Brian, though he's supposed to call later and see if Jay's done the deed or not.

The only other line of digits programmed in here is the one that leads to Andrea. Would she mind if he called, just for some moral support? She always used to walk slowly around the hospital and stop and chat to anyone passing. She said he could call if he _needed_ anything, but is _wanting_ something okay? If posting writing was an actual bad idea, one likely to make him feel worse than he does at present, she'd say so, right? He hits dial and waits, his heart going up with every ring. What if her husband or one of her kids comes to the phone? What will they think of the headcases she cares for calling home as and when they feel? What if he ends up jabbering something about her flirting with his housemates?

“Hello?”

Andrea is as a distant as a radio host's outside of the office and flattened by the static crackle of the phone, cutting through the quiet comfort of this house. Jay holds the phone away from his ear. _Why am I doing this?_

“Hello?”

There's a cold, clipped tone to her voice; she's had enough already. She sighs on the other end, disappointed, wondering what he could possibly have to say that's so important. Only... how would she know it's him? _Oh, yeah, I have to speak too_. “Hi. Is... is Andrea there?”

“Speaking. Is that you, Jay?”

“Yeah. Hi. I was just wondering, um...”

“Is everything okay with you?”

“No, no, I'm fine. I just...” He forces out a laugh. _Come on. Don't be embarrassed. There's nothing she hasn't heard before_. “Today's weird, is all. I'm supposed to be driving out to see my parents later, and I'm posting some writing online.”

“All of that sounds good to me. You must be excited if you couldn't wait 'til Monday to tell me about it.”

“Yeah, but... I don't know why I called you, to be honest. I guess I just don't have a whole lot of other numbers in here.”

“I can really see how you hooked such a beautiful other half with charm like that.”

“I didn't mean it that way.”

“I'm aware, Jay. I don't want to rush you or make you think you can't call me when you need to, but I have to be at a staff meeting in about half an hour. And as much as I'd like to, I really can't blow it off unless there's something urgent going on.”

“It's just that I can't quite believe it. Like, I look at myself a couple months back, and then today, and it's hard to believe it's really real.” It pours out of him like too much water, everything that's been perched on the periphery of his mind all day, drawn out in that way she always does. “Hearing your voice helped with that.”

“I think you might have a latent romantic streak after all. Now post the story.”

“How do you know I haven't done it already?”

“The same way you know I'm giving you a look right now.”

She will be – the single raised eyebrow, the pursed lips waiting to be proven wrong. “ _Fine_. Maybe next time I speak to you I'll be able to show you all my rave reviews.”

“I'd like to think that. But don't be discouraged if you don't get any kind of response right away. I wouldn't have done my job for more than a few months if I let that happen.”

“I know.”

“And don't change what you're doing trying to please more people. If I've learned one thing, it's to never chase anyone. The right people will find you in time.”

Not the most sensitive phrasing given Jay's history of chasing people – _believe me, I learned that lesson the hard way_ – but it's good advice. “Thanks. I don't want to keep you anymore, so I'll see you Monday.”

“Great, I look forward to it,” she says, and maybe she even means it. “Take care of yourself, Jay. Kiss the others from me.”

He smiles and shakes his head as he rings off. _I can't let down someone like that, can I?_ So he stabs the button and sits back. The screen flashes white, and then there it is under his username. _'With the Tide'_ by lonelyuphere. _Okay_. There's something like a hundred of these posted on the site every minute. What are the chances they'll choose his? But to leave the thing sitting there with nobody looking at it – like turning up to a party where he doesn't know anyone.

 _Why did I let anyone tell me this was a good idea?_ He chews his lip, flicking from one tab to the next. Tim said the story was well done. Tim doesn't sugarcoat anything. He wouldn't let Jay embarrass himself putting a story online if it wasn't any good. He jumps as his phone rings, flashing up Brian's number.

“Hey.”

“Hey, Jay. Did you do it yet?”

“Right this second.”

“So if I look under the username you told me, I'll be able to read it?”

 _Yeah, but please don't_. “Yeah, you'll see it.”

“That's great, Jay. It was a brave thing for you to do.”

“I don't know. I think you going back to work somewhere that awkward is pretty brave, too. How's it going?”

“It's better, today. I'd have a hard time fucking up washing some plates but it feels good to do something, anyway.”

“I'm... really pleased for you.” _Think of something to say_. Jay bites his lower lip; for all their smiles, a silence still happens with Brian sometimes, when there's no dedicated talking point to keep them away from apologies that would be arriving far too late. “Okay, I'm going to go finish packing for later now. I hope the rest of your day goes alright.”

“Thanks, Jay, and same to you. I'll see you later.”

The screen darkens, the room fills with birdsong again, and Jay puts the phone down. _Poor Brian_. At least Jay never had much of a life to begin with – can't be easy, happy memories taunting you all the time. Perhaps some of his own will be coming home tomorrow – there's very little packing to do, in truth, since anything of value he owns is back there. How much of their prodigal son's stuff did they keep? Do they still have his Star Wars figures and his dinosaur sheets and photo albums full of a smiling boy? They'd have more books to put on the shelves, more colourful titles than the battered ones Tim owns, and maybe they still have an old PlayStation he could bring home and the three of them can sit around swearing at each other - _for fun, this time_.

He winces as Brian tackling him to the ground comes back in full colour. The carpet coming up to meet him and his stomach lurching. Skinny limbs sticking out of holey clothes and who knows what leaking out of his liquored mouth. The burn of the shots he knocked back over the night. Burning even worse on the way down but after, the way it tingled and made him float, up and away from all of this -

 _Stop thinking about it. Back to now_. Tim left him some money, a few dollars to pick up some water and snacks for a long drive. _It's about enough for a cheap bottle, too_ – he blinks, unfolds the bill, rubbing it gently between his fingers – the best symbol of trust he could've been awarded, and it makes him blush to look at it.

The steps are simple. Put on some clothes, lock the door behind you, amble along to the grocery store down the road and pick up some water, a couple candy bars, some chips that won't leave too much orange dust on Tim's car. The sun's out and it's early enough to avoid the rush hour. It's all laid out before him, yet Jay stays stock still where he stands. His chest tightens. _You don't need him to hold your hand_. Nothing bad would happen, and if it did, it was just as likely to happen in the house. The door's right there. He furrows his brow, resolute. But ends up back on the sofa anyway.

He sits down, head swimming, and pulls the laptop back onto his knee. It's only been five minutes – no-one will have had time to finish reading it yet, let alone to comment, but he checks anyway. A couple hits - that's a start. _Look again in a few minutes_. He crosses the room to put some coffee on, leaving it to brew on the way to the bedroom.

He steps over the brown stain on the floor and opens his half of the wardrobe, throwing T-shirts and underwear into a travel bag he got as far as dragging out last night. Pulling them on over his boxers, his jeans don't hang off him the way they used to. He takes a seat on the far side of the bed. _My side_. His eyes mist as they wander around the room. His room, in his house, as much as it is Tim's. As much as it is Brian's.

The coffee's done. He walks back into the kitchen and dumps the bag next to the counter, pouring a cup and drinking it black. His stomach growls, so he drops to his knees. There's a box of crackers in here, behind the half-empty cereal boxes stacked in a row of three because none of them like the same thing – Brian needs an instant hit of chocolate and marshmallow to greet a new day, Tim prefers something plainer, and Jay's just about coping with oatmeal now. They're in here _somewhere_ , past the peanut butter and the packet of pasta and the dry rice.

Behind something that clinks against a triangle of soup cans when his hand finds it.

By his hand is a bottle of wine, left over from Brian's family's invasion, no doubt. Maybe he could take it along this evening, to contribute to their meal. He pulls it out and checks the label. Only cooking wine by the look of it, but he's no connoisseur, so he carries it back to the couch with him to ask Brian when he's home.

He shakes the laptop off its screensaver – a deer hiding in someone's spinach patch – and routinely checks off all his social media outlets. The most exciting development is a Twitter photo of Brian posing with thumbs up and a huge grin in a little apron in the kitchen. _That's some great advertisement for the bar right there_.

He brings up the story and from somewhere it's had thirty hits already. _Not bad_. Still no response. He drums his fingers on the edge of the laptop and sips some coffee, burning his tongue. He jolts and a little spills over the side. In the scrabble to grab a tissue to mop it, he comes perilously close to knocking the wine onto the floor. God knows there's been enough smashed things and stains on this ground already, so he moves it to the table in front of him.

The bottle is shaded in green and red by the bright sun. Maybe one glass wouldn't be such a bad idea – just to let him relax, to get through this wait, so he doesn't act all skittish around his parents and make them think they've done something wrong and he'll vanish again. Tim and Brian can stay none the wiser – they'd never have left him alone with the bottle if they known it was lurking in the cupboard. Which is _ridiculous_. He was only experimenting, before, and he hasn't overdone it since he's been out of hospital.

 _Only because you didn't have the means to_ , chirrups the little voice in the back of his head.

 _Shut the fuck up._ The last few weeks have been a victory. They all say so. So he's excused just one little glass, just to ease himself, just to make it better for everyone.

He unscrews the cap and the smell of paint stripper hits him. Yeah, it's cooking wine. _When do we ever cook anything sophisticated enough to have wine in it?_ Never. So there's no way they'll miss it if it's gone. He lifts it to his lips and winces at the bitter taste, but gulps it down, the sting clouding his eyes again. The neck of the bottle gleams a clear green. Maybe that was more than a glassful.

Never mind. He's smiling again, typing a route into Google maps to check exactly where they're headed. Leave the story fifteen minutes. People might have found something to say by then. Unless it's so terrible they can't find a good word to include. Not that he expected tomes of glowing praise for a quick ramble about the sea, but he'd rather hear “This sucks, but here's a lengthy list of things you could do to improve it” than deadening silence. _What was I thinking? No-one would ever be interested in anything I – now stop_. He's not supposed to be thinking this anymore.

He takes another sip of the wine. The sour bite gags him, but it's better than choking on his own words. So he raises the glass neck to his lips again – easier, the more goes down. On the screen, grey lines snake across white, charting the drive they'll make later. Closer than the college town, but enough they'll need sustenance – he'll go find a store once he's bored with this map. He traces the route with a finger; a few places here sound familiar enough, but there's a long way he's yet to chart mentally between there and here. Once places start sounding familiar again he zooms in, to the point where park lands and street names his younger self roamed start showing up.

There's the woods they used to drive out to and walk the dog – Hunter. And there's the narrow street lined with rickety shops they drove along after. Picking him up something from the British candy store and making him salivate all the way home, so pulling up on their drive was just as exciting. But then he started High School and came home with spots and grades that weren't quite good enough, blanking out the rest of the world with the darkness enshrining his computer.

 _Is disappearing and coming back the only way I could've avoided disappointing them?_ He chokes back a laugh and reaches for the wine – the burning taste the only thing he has to blank out the voice. His aim's a little off as he reaches over to put it back on the table, and all his limbs are tingling. _Yeah, that's enough for now_.

His heart is drumming too, but is that the wine or the fact that he's heading back along this road in but a few hours? He clicks the tab closed, but the snake of the road stays in his eyes. They love him for him, they say, not what grades he can get or what job he can do. But there it is again; _why?_ What's he done to deserve their excitement at seeing him again? They'll see Tim with his job and his good looks and wish he was their son instead – they're the parents he deserved, not his mother who could never look past his illness.

_Why do you drink when it always makes you feel like this?_

The little voice can fuck off. There's nothing a drink stirs up that wasn't bubbling under the surface already, and alcohol strips away the veneer of positive thought patterns he weaves into a lie the rest of the time. Better take another mouthful, just in case. He lurches close to falling face-first into the coffee table, and rights himself. This will fade in time. It's just to cope with nerves. Nerves at seeing his own parents, because he's that fucking pathetic.

Andrea is in the room with him for a moment, her eyes unwavering behind her glasses, telling him no, no-one else would ever think that, stop holding yourself to unfair standards. Maybe she has a point. It's normal to be nervous of anything unfamiliar, as spending time with his family has become. Everyone gets nervous before they introduce a new partner to their parents.

 _Yeah. Right_.

That's not what kept him up last night. They will look at him and _know_. He'll be no better at hiding everything he's done than he was at hiding the smell of the pot he brought home that one time. Jessica crying as the door closes. The top of the wine bottle flies halfway across the room in his flurry to get it open. He throws his head back and pours it down his throat, only by now, it doesn't even have the good grace to burn.

The story is up on the laptop screen, the words all scrambling with one or two peeking out – 'fall', 'blind', 'cold'. Somewhere there's a number he was looking for. Thirty. No, forty, now. And still another bunch of zeros. He slams the laptop closed. Maybe he should just trash the fucking thing – it's not like it's worth writing on.

Andrea swims in front of his eyes, those eyes of hers the only thing he can focus on, piercing him to the core. _What can we do to stop you being a person you feel sorry for?_

Just give up. That's what he can do. He's no good as a writer and no good as a friend and evidently no good as a son if he has to turn up drunk on their doorstep. Maybe Tim can still go in his place and have the family he deserves. He throws the bottle back – and sucks on air. It's empty. With a cry he throws it onto the floor where it bursts into shimmering green, a thin trickle of crimson seeping into the carpet.

 _You fucking idiot_. There's no way Tim and Brian will mistake this for anything else. There's a brush... somewhere. Where did he put it after he tidied up his last adventure in here? He staggers up to search and trips onto his knees, one palm landing flat in the broken glass. What's blood and what's wine? He crawls backwards, wiping his hands on his knees and steadying himself on the coffee table to rise, smearing it with blood. He can wipe it off later. _Brush_.

It's too big to be in any of the kitchen cupboards. _I had it just the other day to clean up the mess in here_. Where's a logical place to put it back? He shuffles to the bathroom – nothing there, either. _Why am I going through the cupboard?_ Brian's room? It's almost empty. He opens the door and checks behind it, by the window, under the bed, for nothing.

 _Our room_ . It's not by the door, the wardrobe. He drops to his knees and scrabbles under the bed, rifling through the books stored under there and the few wayward items of clothing. That's where he found the last bottle. He scrabbles, lifting his nails on the carpet fibres – nothing hard comes to hand, no clink of glass against floor. _Bottle? Wasn't I looking for the brush?_

What's the use at this point? The carpet on the living room floor is even more ruined. He can barely stand. The wine has painted the blood in his veins in its own dark hue, illuminating in ghastly red the marks on his wrists.

 _I've fucked everything up_.

Only maybe there was nothing there to fuck up. His recovery? Another lie to himself, to Tim. Something he told himself in order to sleep at night. Lonely nights with drunken haze his only friend were always waiting around the corner, like so many other things in his past. A white blank face peering around a corner, leaning through a door frame. He snaps his head around, nothing there, but he's retching like he did before and on his feet and throwing himself out of the door.

The sun is hot on the path leading away from the house, and a slight breeze stirs his dampened hair from his forehead. The trees hiss, in the direction his feet fall, one in front of the other against his will. Coins jangle in his pocket, jeans hanging loose, childhood trips with pocket money. His parents. It's not too late. He can still walk and pick up some road snacks and they'll be there tonight. He can sober up, and if they notice the wine...

There's a gas station he used to frequent with Tim. Never more than one person in there at any time, which came in useful when they ran out of money and needed to keep their strength up. Most of the snack foods went unattended if Tim was buying cigarettes. They were kept behind the counter with the bottles of liquor, but a shelf full of wine at the back of the shop sat just out of the cashier's line of vision.

He stops in his tracks. Their neighbours will stare, wonder why he's stood in the middle of the street, but they can't think highly of him anyway. It's no use. Steal a bottle of wine and pretend to be sober? How many drinks will he have to turn down later?

If he's nervous about seeing his own parents, he doesn't even deserve to be around them.

He walks, keeps walking, throwing his arm above his eyes to shield him from the sun and slipping off the sidewalk every so often. He gets a total of three “Aren't you too young to be drinking? Why aren't you in school?” interrogations from strangers with nothing better to do but carries on undaunted. Until he's here, a press of people smothered around him and a shot glass with a chip out of the rim sitting in front of him. That's all the money Tim gave him gone, on a few drips of poison. He's waiting, saving it until all these people get the fuck out and leave him alone with it, but he's sweating a little and choking on his breath and the girl behind the bar is staring at him.

“You've got blood all over your hands, sweetie. You okay?”

 _Blood on my hands_. Ratty light brown hair, tangled like underbrush. Broken glasses and red eyes of malice behind them. He barks laughter, sinking down on his knees.

She's leaning over the bar, frowning on a face he's used to seeing lit up with a smile. _Used to?_ She's blonde, with rosy apple cheeks and not much taller than him by the look of things. She's familiar, but where...?

“Dude, can you get up? I really don't think this drink is such a good idea for you.”

A photo in an attic. The same smile framed by longer hair, peering into a camera – quickly snapped around to illuminate a suited figure in their doorway.

“Amy,” he says, and crumples into laughter again.

“Have we met?” She laughs like the spill of clear water over a tumbling fall. “Hey, guys, can someone help him up?”

Heavy hands fall on Jay's shoulder and he screams, writhing away until he's lying on his back. “Don't fucking touch me!”

Feet around his head scatter back, like insects from a sweeping brush. A pair of scuffed ballet flats take their place. She's come out from behind the bar and leans down, tufts of shorter hair falling first. _Amy_. She made it out somehow – and he has to leave. Get out, find a new dive bar to hang out in and never show his cursed face to her again. She's saying something. A voice like ringing glass buried and smashed under the beery cries around him. Does she know her friend is dead because of him? She's just looking down at him with the wide eyes of useless innocence and a pity that makes his stomach twist. He has to go. _But not without my vodka_.

Jay inhales a readying breath and springs to his feet, clutching the top of the bar. The glass is still there. He's lifting it to his waiting lips – a hand claps his arm and he jolts, and he gasps, and there's a splash of liquid accompanied by the crack of broken glass on the floor.

It's Amy holding his arm. “Sir, will you just come with me and sit down? You don't look so good. Like, you're about to burst into tears.”

He laughs so hard he bends at the waist, looking at the shattered shot glass under his feet. “No use crying over spilt milk.”

The door creaks open behind him - fresh air, light. He shoves past the press of drink-warmed bodies swelling around him and throws himself out of the door, there might be a woman's voice behind him, there might not. Everything's too loud. The street is empty enough, most people will have useful jobs to do at this time of day. There's cars up ahead. He straightens his back. Does he have to cross a road to...? _Where was I going?_ The gas station, for some reason. Only he's no money left. _It's this way_. He stumbles to his right.

A car horn blasts on its way past. The red blur flies away too quickly for Jay to make out the driver – not that the honk was for him. He doesn't know anyone here. To meet people you need some money, and for that he'd need a job, and for that he'd need a car, and for a new license he'd need money. And on it goes. There's no way out of the mess he's made for himself. That afternoon they spent doing the resume – it's all just dress-up.

And the idea he could ever be a writer is a joke. Wiping the laptop should be the first thing he does when he gets home. _Home. Where I should be heading now_. There's no use going anywhere else. Only his feet disobey him and follow the line of traffic, the narrowing horizon growing broader with every step. His feet eat up the pavement, moving like a conveyor belt beneath his downcast head, with only the occasional trip on a broken paving slab.

He stops when the store takes shape out of a swash of neon just starting to glow as the twilight deepens. He's out of breath and his lungs are clenched fists. Sweat runs in rivulets down the back of his neck, where the hood of his jacket is chafing with the heat. Another bast from a horn and he's startled off his feet. The thug behind the wheel yells something low and fast over the squeal of the engine, and he crawls off the road, just to rest. A breeze stirs, a little relief from the prickle of his damp hair on his skin, and an empty beer can rolls with a dry death rattle towards his foot. Thirsty and hot, he reaches out for it.

 _Seriously, Jay? You have no idea where that's been_.

Shaking himself, he pulls himself up on a streetlight and struggles on, in through the door with the familiar bell tinkling over his head. The assistant, whose face is a dark smear, looks up and turns back to the paper in front of them. _Why is there no-one in here?_ All he wants is a drink. It's not good to go in with no money, but it's like before, he's desperate. It's bad for him to walk so far with nothing to drink. He could just slip a bottle of cold water into his front pocket, but somehow he's found himself in front of the wine, and now he's running with wild flailing limbs out of the store.

The crossword fan behind the register clearly isn't paid enough to run after him. So that's Jay's supply of good luck used up for another year or so. He laughs to himself, then coughs to suppress a rising nausea. He's a thief and a drunk and he doesn't deserve to go home.

 _So where, then?_ _I don't know anyone_ . But his feet rise and fall with a life of their own, take him around a few corners, until roots and bracken swallow them up. A kids' slide and swing set stand in stark silhouette against the dimming sky, empty and forlorn in an hour too late for youngsters but too early for the huddled drunks that gather after sunset. A black fence of jagged pine sits on his eyeline. _How the hell did I get here?_ Perhaps there is some preternatural lure to the forest, but either way, he's here with only the trees for company and quiet to enjoy his wine. A hand in his pocket for the bottle, comfortingly solid, and he's walking well-worn trails straight to the heart of the woods.

 


	29. Lullaby

_Now I yearn to follow you in everything I do  
All those years in isolation helped me want for you  
Lead me to a place I'm free from all the wrongs I do  
In return I'll live forever loving you  
_ _In my mind, eternal darkness  
_ _Seemed like it was true  
_ _Oh so wretched, wretched, wretched, wretched  
_ _My saviour knew I was weary (I was lost)  
_ _I was sleepy but you held me through  
__Carried me along the sand your footsteps gold and good_  
\- FKA Twigs

 _And this is what you get for giving optimism a shot_. Tim rolls his eyes at the soft and sighing “I understand” from the other end of the phone. Right about now he should be shuffling into the Merrick household and forcing a smile at a string of dad jokes. But no, of course normal problems like smelling of smoke and arousing suspicion with his dented nose were just too much to hope for. Instead, they're introducing themselves over wires, her voice on the verge of breaking. There isn't a nice way of saying she'll never see her son again, and neither will he, because he's off self-destructing somewhere quieter, so it'll have to be lies for now.

His well-worn pessimism would've kept that five dollar bill safe in his wallet until he handed it over for snacks and water en route to Jay's family home and driven them there safe and sound. _Listen to your ample gut, Timothy_. Because, as the bottle broken on the floor just goes to show, hoping gets you nowhere.

“Tim? Hello? Are you still there?”

He stutters back to life. “Yeah, sorry, the line cut out for a second there. What were you saying?”

Jackie Merrick raises her voice. “Is Jay okay? It's nothing out of the ordinary, is it?”

“Uh, no, it's nothing serious.” Tim's tripping over his own words and on the other end she can't be buying this, can she? Not with the way he's breezing through it. “Jay's been kind of sick all day – just a bug, I think, it's been going around. He's sleeping now. He'll be fine in a couple days but, you know, I don't think it's such a good idea for us to drive all that way tonight.”

“I understand, you're quite right,” she says, polite as can be, but even the shitty reception catches her heavy inhalation. “Make sure he drinks plenty. What about this weekend, then? Will it work if we drive down and see you?”

“That's, well, that's fine by me, but I guess you'd better run it by Jay. I'll get him to call you tomorrow and see how he feels. He was really excited for this, too. He's told me so much about your house I feel like I've seen it already.”

The last part isn't a lie. Jay didn't have photos to show him, but Tim has had the honey-coloured walls and curling iron streetlight outside the bedroom window and the S-curve of the garden path out back described to him with Jay's increasing verbal precision, with colour in his cheeks and a glow in his eyes as he spoke. The smell of wild garlic carried on a sunset, and his mother's laugh after a tumbler of red wine. She laughs now, but it fades into a sigh. “I was excited, too. In a way. I couldn't even believe it was really happening until I was disappointed.” She laughs again.

“I have this number. I won't let him fall out of touch with you again.”

“That's good. It's good that you're looking after him so well. I was looking forward to meeting you, too. You seem like a good person.” She laughs again, but it's crooked, uneven. “How many times can I say 'good' in under a minute? But, still. He's never brought a partner home before. He must be absolutely smitten with you.”

“I... hope so.” So smitten he's trashed the house and disappeared again. _How can you just lie to her like this?_

“He was never the most outwardly loving person, never demonstrative,” she says, her voice straining with breathy whimpers between syllables. “That's why I didn't really think much of it, hearing from him maybe once a month for so long. I keep remembering our conversations and trying to think what I could've said to him, that maybe he wouldn't have fallen away altogether -” she pauses, with a heavy exhale. “I'll speak to him when he wakes up. Thank you for letting me know you won't be coming, and for taking such good care of him.”

 _Yeah. Such good care. Leaving him by himself was a great idea, and giving him money? What did you_ think _was going to happen?_

“He has so much love to give, even if he doesn't always know how to show it.”

Tim shifts his mouth from the speaker as a choked sob bubbles up unannounced. Jay shows it by giving up his whole life to chase after a distant college friend and putting himself in harm's way to try to save a girl he spoke to twice.

“I'm so glad he found someone to share it with.”

The last week or so, all the falling asleep together, Jay sharing his writing, the open window afternoon in the music room and a couple times after when they had their couch-bed back, all of it with an alternative rock soundtrack and a lazy, soft-focus companionship any film student would envy for their indie comedy – what was love and what was alcoholic haze? _Why'd he do this to himself when everything's coming up only slightly wilted roses?_

Jay has so much love to give, and give it he does, until there's nothing left for himself.

“I... I have to go now. I need to get to the store before it closes, get him some aspirin. I'm sorry we couldn't make it.”

“I'm sorry I kept you so long, dear. It's just going to seem awful quiet here tonight, even though we're next to the road.” She sighs again. “I'll see you next week, I hope. Take care.”

Tim sits still, the phone on the other end clicks off. Empty ringing replaces her voice. Jackie Merrick is only a name to him, a name and something about coloured rings on her fingers. Long fingers, maybe, like Jay's. Is she looking down a empty corridor in silence, too? He inhales and counts; _one, two, three_. Breathing out, some of the tightness in his shoulders falls away, and he reaches into his pocket for his car keys. One down, but where to start with the rest? And where the hell is Brian? He said day shift today. But he also said overtime, and something about walking back to work on the physique he lost. But what on the stroll home from town would stop him answering his phone?

Tim breathes in, slow. Nothing's happened. He's working late because he's never learned how to say no. Or maybe he's had a taste of normal life again and decided he's done taking turns with panic attacks and nightmares every day. _I couldn't blame him_.

Brian's number was his first thought upon walking through the door to find a broken bottle on the floor. Cooking wine. Someone's discarded sneaker flew across the room and he fell onto the couch. _How?_ How could either of them be so stupid as to not check properly that all of them were gone? And leaving him money?

 _That's what fucking optimism gets you_.

Tim rubs his eyes. Brian's missing in action. Jay's parents clearly haven't heard from him, and he's left his phone. Tim takes Jay's laptop from the seat beside him, open on a fiction website, the username Jay registered at the top and a comment notification beneath it. He might forgive him for looking at it without permission, some day. So, he posted the sea thing... and all the cliff imagery... Shaking, Tim opens the history – a route to his parents' house and all his social media outlets. Nothing unusual. Nothing helpful.

Who else is there to turn to? There's Ren, but she has enough on her mind with the plan she let him in on, the one he was supposed to be talking over with Jay on the way. Wouldn't be fair to call her with worries not concerning her when she's expecting an answer from him.

Would any of the neighbours have seen Jay heading out to wherever he's gone? He's never exchanged much more than “Hi” with any of them, and asking as one weird gay crackhead to another where his alcoholic boyfriend might have wandered off to doesn't seem the best way to acquaint himself in this family-friendly wooded suburb.

The logical thing to do would be to ask at bars if they've seen anyone like Jay. Nothing to arouse suspicion – they were on some all-day drinking session and separated, got their meeting points confused. There's the one Jay frequented on a few unfortunate nights before the last time he went to hospital, with the peeling sign and the good bathroom for doing coke in. The press of bodies emboldened and angered by drink and the blaring bad music and the fact of having to talk to strangers has him shaking even more, but he's on his way to the car all the same.

 _You fucking idiot_ . If he'd just picked up some snacks himself on the drive home, none of this would've happened and they'd be on their way to Jay's parents and his mom's lasagne right now. Jay knows the buttons to push, certainly. Everything must be okay if he has the confidence to show off his writing and ride a dick with wild abandon. _What does he have to do before you stop believing every lie he tells you?_

 _Stop_. Jay is a person with a mind of his own. If he wanted to do this he would've one way or another, and Tim blaming himself isn't going to do anything. He gets into the car and slams the door - no music, just the winding side-streets leading to the bar. The place emits a weak, yellow-green ooze of light into the encroaching darkness. Inside it's even dingier than he remembered, peeling paint flaking all over the outside, and the smell of malt and stale sweat hitting him as he walks through the creaking door. It's packed, full of plenty of people of middling height with short brown hair. Where's he supposed to start asking?

Another door lets loose a drunken brawl groan from the opposite side of the room – a girl swings open a door marked staff only, blonde hair cloaking her face and a pink bag slung over her shoulder. She could know. But what if Jay got himself into trouble? What if he's gone home with someone else and –

“Excuse me,” he says as she passes.

She puts one hand on the door undaunted, so he clears his throat and raises his voice.

“Excuse me, miss!”

He taps her on the shoulder and she snaps her head around, tensed and clenching her fist. Tim retracts the hand and follows her darting eyes across and back to the bar, where a shaven-headed muscle man is polishing glasses with the same fervour as the headlights of the bike he's got waiting outside, no doubt. He nods, and lowers a black eye onto Tim. Unnecessary, but understandable, given the drunken frat boys tumbling around in the corner.

“Yes?” she snaps.

“I didn't mean to startle you. I'm not making any trouble. I just want to ask if you've seen someone.”

She adjusts the strap on her shoulder with a you-really-think-I-haven't-heard-this-one-before roll of her eyes. “I've served, like, hundreds of dollars' worth of customers today.”

She turns away and opens the door, but with a twist of her head over her shoulder inviting Tim to follow. He ducks out and grapples with clumsy hands in his pockets, following her at a stumbling trot once a cigarette is going. _Where have I seen her before?_ He's never indulged in the interior of the bar prior to today, but her eyes were blue before she walked close enough to be seen. She's still glancing side-to-side, nodding at a flock of passing strangers. The wind blows a cloud of exhaled smoke towards her, and she wrinkles her nose, fanning it away.

He clears his throat as she walks on. “This guy I'm looking for, brown hair, a little taller than me -”

“So are most guys. That could be any number of people I've seen today. You're going to have to be more specific. What was he wearing?”

“Uh... maybe a brown jacket? I didn't see him dressed today. I think he might've been drinking before he came in.”

Her face softens then, and she stops striding away from him. “You know, there was one guy who came in and looked like he'd had too many already. I didn't notice until after I served him and I felt so bad about it. And now he's missing?”

“It's only been a few hours, it's probably nothing.”

“But there's some kind of problem? I mean, if it's reassuring at all he slipped and spilled his drink all down himself, and I think he only had money for one with him because he ran out after.”

“Right. You see which way he went?”

“No, there were too many people in the bar.”

“Okay. Well, thanks for telling me that much.” He sticks his hands in his pockets and walks away.

“Wait!” The sound of flat shoes slapping cobblestones echoes behind him. “Look, is there anything I can do to help more? I should've said something to someone when he was here, and I feel bad for being kind of rude to you.”

“Don't worry about it. I get it. I'm sure you get all kinds in there.”

She nods. “That's why your friend kind of stood out to me. He wasn't there trying to hassle girls, he didn't even look at anyone else, and he wasn't exactly having a good time. He just seemed lost, I guess.”

 _Sounds about right_. Jay stumbling into a swarm of strangers shouting around him, nowhere to go but home, and home has too many reminders in it. He shakes his head and lights another cigarette.

“I really appreciate the offer, but I'm not sure what you could do. It's too soon to bother any authorities with. I guess I'm just going to ride around, I can't think of anything else, and I understand if you're not exactly keen to get into a stranger's car.”

“Okay. Can I give you my number? Just so you can let me know when you find him. I'm sure it's nothing, I just can't help feeling a little responsible.”

“Don't. You're just doing your job.” He keys in the number she reads out, and pauses over save. “I don't have your -”

“Amy,” she says, and smiles, and it's the smile that does it. She's wearing her hair differently, scraped back with a glittering silver band, but the pearly grin and big blue eyes click the jigsaw into place. Her face was easier to name when it was quartered by wrinkles in paper, but it's _her_. Alex's Amy, last seen leaping from a second-floor window with no idea what was going on.

For a moment, all he can do is stand with his mouth open. Social awareness kicks in soon enough and he presses in her name, stealing a glance at her face. She still has no clue what's going on if her soft smile and glowing, sleep-nourished skin are anything to go by, and far be it from him to spoil blissful ignorance for her.

“Thanks, again. I'll be in touch. It's Tim, by the way.”

“Okay, Tim. I guess it was nice to meet you. Come by the bar some time, both of you. If it's okay for your friend to do that, anyway.” She clears her throat, red rising in her cheeks. “I'm kind of rambling now. But I'll see you around.”

She walks away; silhouetted against the streetlights up ahead, she could've never been here at all. He blinks her shadow away and climbs back into the car, falling back against the headrest. He tries Brian's number again – voicemail, the dull automated tone he's heard too many times tonight. _Why are you putting up with them working you so much?_ He turns the key. The world outside the lights on the dashboard is black, and vast. He could be anywhere with all the coloured lights along the streets blurring into one outside. The same streets he drove in search of the cheapest room, the closest thing to nutrition he could find, not so long ago. Is his whole life going to revolve around looking after Jay? _How many chances are you going to give him?_ He blinks, and repeats the sentence in his mother's voice, and carries on, apparently expecting Jay to just turn up on a street corner.

If his life isn't going to revolve around Jay, what is it going to revolve around? Not work. No matter what Ren suggested to him today – it's tempting but a terrible idea. _You don't even like animals_. Back to Jay. There's no-one else he knows in town, unless he's friendly enough with some of the patients he was in with to know where they live. _And his therapist_. He's always talking about the way she cuts right to the quick of a warped thought he has, and he has her home number. Tim pulls a U-turn out of the street he's heading down, and races back to the house.

The lights are off and the door's still locked when he arrives. It's almost ten. What the hell has happened to Brian? He opens the door and switches on the living room light, side-stepping broken glass and red stains to Jay's phone abandoned on the coffee table.

“Jay?”

He runs through the house – makes more sense to assume Jay might've come back here than tried to hide somewhere. No-one, not so much as a muddy footprint or a door left ajar. _Phone_. He scrolls down until he finds Andrea's number. If she's none the wiser? Jay could be shivering in a doorway somewhere, or... the last time he went drinking by himself and didn't come home...

Throwing accusations around isn't going to help anyone. He presses dial and the other end rings a few times before she picks up. “Hello?”

“Hi. Is this Dr. Moreno?”

“Which?”

“Uhm... Andrea.”

“I didn't think I sounded like a William, but okay. Who's calling?”

“This is Tim Wright. I'm Jay Merrick's partner. One of your patients.”

“ _Oh_.” Is that a flirty edge drifting into her voice? Either way, she drops it right away. “Oh. Jay called here earlier. It didn't sound like an urgent breakdown but it didn't sound like a social call either. Is everything okay?”

There's no use in lying to her – she's the most qualified of anyone to deal with this. “There's a broken wine bottle on the floor and I don't know where he is.”

She breathes out, a deflating sound suggesting she's sitting down. “Right. Okay. And you have no idea where he might have gone?”

“No. He's probably told you, we don't really know too many people around here, and he's left his phone. Obviously.” Tim puts the phone in the crook of his neck and shoulder while he lights another cigarette. “You were the only person I could think of.”

“Like I said, he called here this morning and he didn't sound too upset, certainly not drunk, but it seemed like he was lonely. Christ, I should've called off that meeting and gone with my instincts on that.”

 _She doesn't know_. The darkness in the house yawns around him. The cold light from the screen dwindles. “I don't think blaming ourselves is going to do anything.”

“You're right, of course. You know him better than I do, I know psychology better than you do. Between us we can work this out.”

Jay's laptop is still switched on beside him, up on the story page. There's a couple comments on it now, but only faint praise and generic words of welcome to the site. But maybe there's something in the text that might help – Tim hasn't read the whole thing yet. He scans it, the last few paragraphs in particular. The guy on the cliff walks off, no idea where to. _Tell me something I don't know_. Perhaps she can, though. “Tonight was the night we were supposed to be driving out to see his parents, if that helps.”

“Right, and he was so reluctant to do that, because he felt he'd let them down. The issues he was having, before he found you – can you think of any place he might tie with failure, guilt, anything?”

 _That's one idea..._ But Tim keeps quiet. Jay's therapy seems to be ticking along nicely without mention of supernatural specifics whose mention would only get him committed again. “I might know a place. Maybe I can head there now, and I'll call you back?”

“Please, do. Let me know when you find him... And, Tim? Don't be mad at him. I can't blame you for it, but I can see he's been trying, and recovery isn't a straight line most of the time. It's more like -”

“ -peaks and troughs,” they say in unison, and laugh. “I know. I had some... problems of my own for a while, and that's how it happened for me. And I learned the hard way to be careful with him.”

“He's lucky to have you.” She sighs. “You better go. Good luck, and thank you for calling. Let me know when you're both home.”

She rings off and Tim doesn't waste a second, throwing himself into the car and setting off into the night, surer this time. On a quiet stretch of road where he's unlikely to be seen, he tries Brian again – still nothing.

 _He'll be fine. Jay will come round_ . In the not too distant future this will seem like panic over nothing and they'll all sit around and discuss Ren's idea. _Maybe._ _Ridiculous idea. Should've laughed it off._ She's only sentimental over their last shift together, and she said to stay in touch, but no doubt she's just being polite.

Then again... when has she ever been one for niceties she's not being paid for? With no more time left in the place and the man writing her reference incarcerated, she's thrown every single fuck she has to give out of the window and spoken her mind to customers all day. Tim was still laughing about the coupon coup as they closed up, until he turned to catch her stood over the register counting up the takings and his stomach knotted. The store was the setting for a selection of the worst days of his life, and now it's over he could potentially never hear a Katy Perry song again in his life, but nostalgia insists on tugging his sleeve all the same.

“Well, that's it,” Red said, twirling the register keys on one red-lacquered finger. “Think you'll miss it?”

Tim snorted. “I'll dream of people telling me to smile. Uh... It was nice to work with you, though,” he said, sincere about it for the first time in his life.

“Yeah, you too.” She smiled and looked at the ground, twisting one foot and wringing her hands. “Keep in touch? You've got my number.”

“Yeah. Of course. So, guess I'll see you round, then.” He headed for the door, but a tap on the shoulder stopped him.

“Wait! Is there any chance you could give me a ride home? I left my wallet in the house and I don't have any money for the bus. I can pay you back when we get there?”

 _A chink in the armour_. Tim smiled and held the door for her. “Don't worry about it. It's not too far out of my way. Let's go.”

Ren stayed quiet in the car, staring out ahead. With her profile passing through patches of amber and black and streetlights making stars of a light rain on the windows, she wouldn't have looked out of place in some dark romance, only the furrow in her brow breaking the atmosphere. _I should be saying something_.

“So... apart from school, what are you doing now? Looking for another job?”

“There's a few options I'm weighing up.” She pursed her lips, the wrinkle in her forehead deepening in a frown. “I might kind of have a plan, though.”

“Oh?”

“My aunt's retiring soon. She runs an animal shelter near the middle of town, and there's no shortage of buyers, but I think she wants me to take it over.”

“As a manager?” The town centre was behind them, then, lawns and lines of trees lost to the neon low behind them and replaced by the brutal lines of apartment buildings thrown up quickly. Lights in windows made a scattershot pattern like the one he used to look at from the window of his childhood room. Where's his mother living now? Does she have a business she could hand to him?

Ren had an answer, for a different question. “Yeah. I'd be running the whole place. Oh, left at the next turn.”

“You'd do really well at that. Didn't take you for a pet sort of person, though.”

“I had them growing up. Big dumb dogs. Sometimes I think I'd like having another one around, but I'm a busy girl and they're kind of demanding. Although, so are straight boys, and I seem to spend a lot of time looking after them.”

Tim laughed. “I hope Brian wasn't too much of a handful.”

“Nah. If anything, I wish he was a little more receptive to attention, you know?”

Luckily, she left Tim to his silence on the matter and turned back to the window. “I'd still like to be friends with you guys, though. As far as the shelter goes, man, I just don't know. I'd rather take her up on that than start the whole application fuckery over again, and I'd know there was something waiting for me when I got done with school.”

“But it's a lot of work for one person who's still a full-time student?” Tim finished.

“Yeah. It would be.”

“You'd need to find a partner or something.”

“Yes. I would. Know anyone?”

“I don't really know a whole lot of people around here, to be honest. What's that smile for? Did I say something - ?”

“Oh, come on, Tim! I'm asking _you_.”

He snorted laughter, but her face fell as he pulled the car to a stop. “For real? Me?”

“For real. You're smart, you're reliable, and I think we work well together. So how about it?”

A long driveway stretched between them and Ren's building, dark and narrow. Her eyes shone waiting for a response – letting her down even gently would've been like kicking one of the puppies she was sheltering. Or could she have been playing one last prank? Picking someone so sullen and so awkward out of the social whirl she no doubt spun in? Yeah, right.

In the end, he went with a response that worked either way. “But I don't like animals.”

“You don't like customers, either, but you did a good job pretending.”

“An abandoned puppy can't tell me to smile, I guess.”

“An abandoned puppy might even _make_ you smile, if you let it.”

She gave him eyes that wouldn't be out of place on one of those puppies and held his arm. Tim shifted in his seat. “Look... I'm really flattered that you'd ask me, but I don't think it's a good idea.”

“You wouldn't be handling the animals or anything. We'd want someone properly trained to do that. I just need help with the admin side of things. The way I see it, I could deal with all the phone calls to strangers and customer complaints and all the stuff you're going to hate, and you can help keep the books balanced.”

“I just don't think -”

“You'd get a manager's salary, you can choose your own hours more or less, you're not at someone else's beck and call anymore. It's more responsibility but I think having more agency might be good for you.”

He chuckled. “We could implement a sexual harassment policy.”

“ _Yes_. And I could go back to my natural hair shape if no-one's there to tell me it's not professional! And I've been thinking, there's loads of office space that doesn't get used, so maybe if we were doing well we could make it double up as a store. Sell, like, local crafts or something.”

“I think that's a lot to take on for someone just starting out. I... I'm sorry. I feel like all I'm doing is putting you down.”

“No, no – see, this is part of the reason I wanted you. You'd reign me in if I start getting big ideas too soon. So why not?”

To her it's a golden opportunity he's being handed, no doubt, and to anyone else it would be. A steady job with no sleepless nights before the interview process with someone he likes and no period of poverty between them. But she doesn't know about the likelihood he could wake up two weeks after his last day in the office without ever warning her, how many meetings he could miss...

 _You haven't blacked out in a long time. Not since you got your medication. Not since that day back in the college._ And yet the moment he lets his guard down, the moment he pushes himself too far and hopes for too much – that'll be when misfortune decides he's had enough and he lets everyone else down with him.

“You don't have to decide anything right now, of course you don't. But will you at least think about it? Talk it over with Brian and Jay. And say hi from me.”

He promised to and bade her goodnight, and he's kept his word in as much as thinking about it. They need all the money they can get right now, and once all of Jay's bills were paid off, it'd be nice to have more to throw away on luxuries he never got to take for granted. He could drive home to have lunch with Jay every day and buy a new laptop to write on and replace the worn-down thing he's always cursing. Take him away somewhere, maybe, just the two of them. Brian could join them for a weekly takeout and movie night. Maybe the job's important enough to merit carrying a briefcase. _I'd like a briefcase_.

Then the silhouette of a familiar forest appears around him, and jagged black boughs block out everything else.

Never again, he swore, the last time he was here. Full stop, period, end. He was looking for Jay with only the thin beam of a flashlight to guide him through the wide and wild woods then, too. The leaves sway above him in mass, like an ocean, and his skin prickles as he opens the door and a cold breeze brushes by him. He squares his shoulders and clicks on the flashlight. Jay survived everything that brought him here last time. If he's in there, he'll be waiting. He must be.

Tim stumbles to the edge of the woods, picks out a trail in the beam and pushes some scrub to the side. His light gleams on spider webs, only a second before they catch his face. What part of this seemed logical at the offset? He stumbles on a protruding root as the woods grow thicker, the canopy obscuring even the stars. A twig breaks under his boot and he freezes, rigid, but not without rustling the brush around him. Anything could be lurking in the deep shadows between trunks – it's a hotspot for desperate souls who'd take one look at his car and decide his wallet might be worth lifting – more fool them – and that's without even considering shadows more sinister.

 _Did it come from here?_ Slender trees with long branch-arms pale under the moon send shivers all over his spine and limbs. There's no way of knowing for sure. He rubs his pimpling bare arms and walks faster. Nothing out of the ordinary has happened since he ran out of that basement with wet feet. Surely, the thing tired of the taste of their sadness and moved onto something new. An owl hoots somewhere off behind him – at least he's not completely alone in this maze.

The trail is well-travelled, and a mental map drawn over previous treks is always at hand. The woods deepen and he's bending under branches more and more, his jeans wet with dew and sticking to him. He's breathing too loudly. He could laugh – not so long ago he'd have been the scariest thing in these woods. The world turns to night vision, something else using his body and putting on a mask and dragging him out here. Jay came for him then.

 _Is your whole life going to be about paying him back for that?_ Well-meaning Jay and his puppy eyes. How many chances is he going to have? But he _has_ been trying, it's there as hard proof in the writing he's done and the little bit of flesh around his hips Tim holds onto at night. A cold, clouded night they should be spending together under a blanket, not shivering in these woods they're supposed to stay away from. _Peaks and troughs_ . He's not the first person to relapse; _and you should know_.

No blackouts, no seizures and no masks since the suit disappeared for the last time. Is this Jay's equivalent? Loneliness and distrust have marked Jay all his life, he says so, he doesn't need to say so because of the thousands words his bad posture and nervous fiddling paint, so maybe it's the same as every time Tim couldn't quite fight the burning nerves and the way slicing his skin with a razor made it all real again. He's coming up on the tumbledown house where some part of him saved Jay's sorry ass from Alex that time. The broken window gleams white in the light of a moon breaking through cloud, hiding what's inside. Cobwebs and creaking floorboards. Faces.

A branch cracks behind him. He whips around – darkness, and more darkness beyond it. Breathe in, breathe out. Probably a deer or something. Like the fawn Jay found the last time Tim chased him through the trees. _Damn it, Jay_. Sunlight and laughter and arms around him, that's what he deserves, the memory that should come to mind when someone mentions woods. Was he drunk then, too? His smile and his glowing skin, nothing more than poison in his blood.

In a cold sweat, Tim turns back to the building. What if someone's in there? What if Jay's in there and he's – blood on the walls, a figure running past him while he yells nonsense at Brian, so much red everywhere, on a cloudy night like this... He swallows a scream and stumbles into a wooden pillar, splintering against his cheek.

He swats the pain away. The door creaks as he shuffles forward, sweeping the broken floor with the flashlight. “Jay?” he calls, soft and croaky, to no reply but a bird taking flight in the corner of the room. When his heart stills, he moves to the staircase, putting one foot in front of the other soft as he can with his heart in his mouth. _What are you doing?_ This isn't love. This is desperation, duty at best. Brian might have had it right when he said he was confused, the whole thing muddied by loneliness and exceptional circumstances. But only yesterday he came home to Brian and Jay sharing snacks like the best of friends on the couch, laughing at something behind his back. And for every memory of Jay hurling abuse, verbal or ornamental, his way, there's twenty of him smiling in his arms and rubbing his back and laughing at his jokes. That doesn't count for nothing because he makes mistakes. _Don't give up on him, the way people gave up on you_.

 _He has so much love to give... never the most demonstrative person..._ And something he said once, if only to himself. About two people who never liked talking very much finding a place where no words were necessary. He kicks at a broken plank by his feet. Jay puts up this aura, this shield, armoured in apathetic grunts and hunched shoulders and baggy T-shirts picked up off the floor from the day before. God knows Tim's anger issues have been trying, but that tough front of faded mud-brown thrift store clothing is gone for him. Once you've fucked someone, things like that tend to change. And romance or no, it wouldn't be right to leave anyone out alone at night when you've a good chance of finding them.

He sets off back into the night and suddenly the rotting walls with all their shadows and alcoves for tall figures to hide in seem welcome next to the expanse of air and black, blank canvas around him. But it's not far now, if his conjecturing is right. _Yes_. The trees are thinning, leaving a patch of pale cloud plain to see above, and a dark hole cut out of the sky looms up ahead. The last place a girl with flyaway hair and a high-pitched scream ran to, and the last place Jay should be right now.

Any time now, the rustling leaves in his wake will shut up. In the clearer air he switches off the flashlight, and here it is – quiet sobbing up ahead. “Jay?” It's a hoarse whisper only the owls can hear, so he steps forward and says it again. “Jay?”

Silence. A sniff, and the crying stops. Tim turns the light back on, pointing the beam towards himself. There's something trembling in a heap huddled by the broken wall around the tunnel. The shaking stops as he approaches. “Jay. Don't be scared. It's me.”

A broken voice he knows too well emits a last sob into the night. “I don't know how I got here. I was just walking and then...”

Doubts and memories and whether or not he's making excuses be damned – Tim falls to his knees, his left foot diving right into a puddle beside him, and takes him in his arms. The quivering resumes right away.

“How did you know?”

Tim buries his face in Jay's shoulder for lack of a better answer. “I love you, Jay.” Hands cling to his shoulders, and with his arm around his waist, Tim lifts him to his feet.

“You're not mad?”

“It's not important right now. Let's get you home.”

 


	30. Anthem

_When I walked in through the door  
Thought it was me I was looking for  
She was the first song I ever sang  
But it stopped as soon as it began  
_ _Our love is over, it's all behind me  
_ _They're all ahead now, can't hope to find me_

His tie is crinkled and hanging off to the side. He turns and the bright light around the bar recedes, replaced by a flickering of countless candles that makes the world spin. Brian grins, the glasses in his hands knocking together to make music – dressed up like this he could be some high-flying businessman talking imaginary money with his other suit friends, musing on how much they just haven't found a way to own yet. _Not for me_. His wide smile and the intoxicated trip in his step belie all of that as he nears their table.

 _Easy_. He bends at the knee, resting a glass of wine in front of Laurel and a fruity vodka concoction for Luke, straightening and distributing beer bottles around everyone else. _And I thought work was done for today_. The tea light in the centre dances around on glasses raised and lowered, and maybe he's had a few too many, but muscles too long neglected ache from smiling. Smiling enough to have been complimented on the shape of his lips no less than seven times since this morning. Apparently the hooded menace who hijacked his body remembered to floss twice daily, and it's a small something to be grateful for.

He's been smiling, smiling away since the bar closed up and they came to a different one. They're in another different one, now, one with huge couches fitted into booths. He flops down on the end beside Mark, with playful elbow nudges and and synchronised swigs of beer.

Brian sinks back with a comforting creak of the leather seat. His shoulders are in a vice and the taking of a hacksaw to the small of his back thanks to the sink set low in the wall wasn't mentioned in the job description. But away from an audience the only sweat on his brow came from the suffocating heat in that kitchen. Nothing broke all day. One pasta residue plate after another came his way and left the sink gleaming in a pile a few heads higher than him. Tony the chef told him the best way of cutting onions – it's a waste of time cutting lemons or sticking them under a faucet, just do it, get it done fast enough you don't think about it and start crying.

Poor shy Luke's out with them too, and while the legality of his drinking is questionable he's laughing at the right time and hasn't touched his phone since they walked through the door. Better suited to a day in front of a screen in his natural habitat. There was a time a young Brian would've said the same thing with a smirk; not _cruelly_ , but enough to get a laugh from his other over-caffeinated friends in sports gear. He winces, now. Luke is a film student who looks at the ground when you ask what he had for dinner last night but who'll talk at length about the power of a rare centred shot, his jaw on the floor when Brian gave the Kubrick stare as an example. _Thanks, Jay_.

Laurel sits in the middle of the group with her hair down, falling glossy to her shoulders with a nice wave where a tie held it away from her face all day. Her face is softer framed with red locks and her cheeks have turned as pink as the work T-shirt she's still wearing, lifting to show a sliver of her stomach as she leans back. Brian turns his head, but with her head thrown back laughing the stern woman he trembled in front of is gone. They could be any other group of co-workers enjoying a drink together.

A couple of the waiting staff – Chloe, an English major, and Mark who's trying to cover his passion for graphic design – are with them. They've both made eyes at Brian the whole time, furtive glances and crooked smiles. He nods to himself. _Still got it_ \- not that he's any intention of giving them more than wink in return.

If he hasn't been the centre of attention, ready with a quip between catching peanuts in his mouth or whatever he used to do to show off in front of frat parties, it's all fine. _Everything is fine_. Watching the others, hearing their laughter, it's the same warm pull as drifting off to sleep at home.

Or it could be five beers loosening his limbs and turning all his speech to incoherent laughter. _I don't care_. The place is thinning out, and Tim and Jay will be all the way out with the might-as-well-be-in-laws by now. Tim and Jay. Brushing this morning, he'd swear he's developing a secondhand cavity with all the hand-holding and cheek kissing going on in the house. He sips his beer and smiles wider still, earning him another couple admiring glances from the next table. His best friends – was it really them, crying and tearing at each other just a few months back? Amazing, what a little communication can do. If it means the never-ending creaking of the mattress resuming nightly, so be it.

And the house is so quiet without. So large and so empty. Nothing to cover the sound of his footfalls on the floorboards that creak and the many, too many places to hide. What's waiting for him in places candlelight and laughter can't reach?

_Why do days like this one have to end?_

He blinks away the long shadows and pale blank faces. Right on time, a bell chimes for last orders, startling him. Jay and Tim must be there by now, sitting around a table with home cooking in front of them, smelling the wild garlic and the paprika his mom puts in everything she cooks. Tim sat on the couch trying to tie his own tie for five minutes straight this morning, muttering about the bad impression he'll make. Pep talk time again. How can meeting parents doting enough to turn out Jay possibly be worse than facing down his childhood demons, and all of that. Not everyone's mother is like his. They'll sit and eat and Tim will ask before smoking indoors and say something snide to them laugh, and Jay will make puppy eyes at him, and everyone will be enchanted.

The first time he met Tim, that handsome face was less lined, but scrunched up in half a scowl and half a desperate attempt to stem his tears, just trying to find his way around. Brian laughs, seemingly at nothing, but the others shrug it off as too much beer. Tim _did_ find his way. He's a hero, even if he doesn't know it.

Will Brian get a turn at taking someone back to meet his folks? His facial muscles get a much-needed rest, the corners of his mouth drooping. The gulf between him and everyone who's never had a paranormal stalker says no. But, hey, at least he'll never go home to pointed questions and disappointed looks when he tells them there's no grandkids on the horizon, like some people would. They love him, whether he's still single at forty or not.

There are other things he can take home. Stories, pictures. He leans back, letting the warmth from the beer flow through him. Maybe he could join up with the theatre group he met not so long ago. Surely they wouldn't remember him as the waiter who had a panic attack seemingly over tea hitting leaves – and even if they did, is it the worst thing in the world to say “I have some problems in my head, but I'm working on them”?

Every day of life with a mental illness is a fucking performance. And maybe they'd appreciate that.

The others are all pulling on their coats and gathering glasses to take back to the bar. The last of the beer foam swills in the glass as it's hoisted up in front of him.

“Anyone want to try another place?” says Chloe, even as she stumbles into the booth next to theirs, giggling.

“I'm too old for this,” says Laurel, shaking her head. “You guys who _aren't working the breakfast shift tomorrow_ are welcome to try to find somewhere else still going, though.”

“I need what I've got left for a cab.” Luke is raking through his wallet like an extra twenty is going to appear in there if he wills it to.

“I'd say you could all come back to mine, but I live in an apartment block and I don't want to risk losing the place for making noise,” says Mark.

Brian nods, bobbing in time with the girl half-rapping over the speakers. “Say -” a tightness in his throat cuts him short. _You're not in college now. You can't just..._ But why not? Got to be better than a lonely house to go back to. He coughs and speaks again, louder. “Say, how about we all head back to my place?”

Everyone freezes mid-struggle with winter clothing, like he's just suggested they all hit up the nearest crack den for a ten-hour gang-bang. Mark and Chloe exchange a glance and nod in unison.

“Yeah, sounds good to me,” he says. “Be cheaper anyway if we pick up some beers on the way back.”

“I'll probably do what I usually do at parties and sit looking at your DVD collection but okay,” says Luke, who immediately bites his lip to stop anymore verbal spillage. But when everyone else laughs and Mark puts an arm across his shoulders he smiles again, and they all file out into the night.

The air is brisker than a rainy day foretold and rasps in Brian's throat, opening his eyes from the weight of the beer dragging them down. The three younger members of the party walk on ahead. Winter's closing in. Maybe they'll get to have a Christmas together like Tim, who's never had a family until now, wanted so badly. The pressed blue shirt Jay's taken to wearing every chance he gets is just _begging_ for a handful of snow down the back of it.

Chloe strikes up a shrill rendition of some song he heard over the speakers while they sat. The others link arms, harmonising. He doesn't know the song well enough to join in, and even if he did, what would it be about? Girls and parties, a life where your biggest worry is being dumped by someone you've been seeing a few weeks. Another world. He pulls his jacket tighter. A couple lights go on as they pass, narrowed eyes probably wondering about the noise, but not another soul is on the street. Laurel is walking a short ways behind him. Her shadow advances on him, elongated to monstrous proportions in the streetlights. For a second it looks like – he shakes his head. She doesn't seem to notice his momentary weirdness, however, leaning in to whisper in his ear under the 'whoops' and clatter of high heels stumbling from their companions further along the street.

“You did so much better today,” she says, her breath a vapour in the cold night, warm enough to bring a blush to his cheek.

“I'm glad you think so. Uh, yeah.”

“Me too. I... you don't have to answer, this is kind of personal, but...” she trails off with a nervous giggle. “Is it... being around too many people that makes you nervous?”

His stomach sinks. _No. I was never like that_. He's supposed to be the one right there in the centre, honing in on the kid who didn't like eye contact and bringing him in. He shouldn't be asking this special treatment of anyone. He draws a breath. _That was then_. If a friend had an accident that took their sight, would he shame them for it? _No. And this isn't so different_. The past, unfortunately, is in the past. Can't old Brian merge with the church mouse person he is now? At least his days of trying to cure other people's woes with silver linings and sunshine are over now, for all the universe could've picked a kinder way to remedy that.

Laurel's her green eyes amber in the dim light, but still she misses nothing. “It's just... I guess it's kind of intimidating to have all those people watching me mess up.”

“Would've though you were used to that, being on stage and all.”

 _What is she..? Oh._ “I... it's not quite the same.”

“Maybe. But -” she trips from the force of her sudden laughter, “I'll let you in on a secret. The people you think are watching? They're not. They're too wrapped up in themselves.”

Easy for her to say. Brian could write the book on being watched, if Tim and Jay agreed to be co-contributors.

She stops, watching traffic lights change yellow to green up ahead, searching his face for an answer. “Your housemates won't mind?”

“Oh, no, they're not there right now.” Neither of them mentioned how long they were thinking of staying, but they're heading out of state. There'll be time to sleep off a headache and clean the place before they get home. He presses his lips, fighting abrupt laughter. _You're really do_ _ing this. You're inviting them into the setting for all the mess of the last few months_. But there's no more glass on the floor – it's a house like any other, and Tim never found the contraband mixtapes full of music he'd hate Brian smuggled in from home.

“So what is it they're up to? An exhibition? A stand-up gig?”

 _What is she...?_ Oh. She remembers his own lie better than he does, and if the curl of her lip is anything to go by...

“You're mocking me, aren't you?” He's had enough to drink to join in with her laughter. It's ridiculous. It's funny. Tim the comedian. _Why all the need to impress people, dude? What's so wrong with saying “I live with a couple of college friends and we're between jobs right now”?_

“I could tell at your interview you were making up this cool bohemian existence you thought would impress us.”

A familiar tightness grips his chest. It's dark, and what light there is tints the world yellow so she can't see the red in his face. But he breathes in through his nose to settle. _You're still working with her_. “But you hired me anyway?”

“I couldn't fault your enthusiasm. And you're cute.”

 _Oh_. She arches her back, the tight T-shirt flattened against the curves of her chest – is she doing it on purpose? _This is interesting_. She's older than he is. Thirtysomething. She's laughing, with a glow and a gleam in her eye that can't just be the booze. A spark. She still has it. Why shouldn't he, just because of a few years? Her eyes crinkle at the corners, too, but they don't make her some frail hag – she's a woman who's laughed a lot. _I'm not old, either. What a stupid idea._

“... maybe had too much to drink,” says Laurel, still talking, bursting into a giggle that brings out the dimple in her left cheek. “What I'm trying to get at is... don't be embarrassed. Everyone says stuff they say to make themselves look better. I...” She rotates her slender wrist and stumbles. “I have definitely had too much to drink. I don't know what I'm saying.”

Brian says nothing. Not for fear of saying the wrong thing, but because there's no need to add anything. _I fucked up_. But who cares? The joke is his lie, not Brian himself. At least he's not lying about a criminal record or a family who cower in fear from him like so many outwardly respectable might.

“No, it's cool, you're talking sense! If you want the truth, Tim's a cashier who just lately found out he was working for a drug ring all this time and Jay is trying to get his writing career together – very literary stuff about oceans, I don't really get it personally, but he seems happy doing it.”

“Ooh, see, that sounds way more exciting.”

“Guess so. Trying to make a living with one of us out of work will be an adventure, for sure.”

“Well, keep working like you did today and you'll be fine. Everyone messes up,” she says, sing-song, stretching her arms. “And everyone makes shit up when they're not sure.”

“Do you?”

She snorts. “Really think I can afford a mortgage at thirty?”

Chloe shrieks up ahead and swings around a screeching door into a liquor store still open for the desperate. He winces in the glare of strip lighting and gaudy red neon, always in the corner of his eye. A couple of other characters are orbiting the register and their eyes are all over the small woman behind the counter. She has wild curling hair and a floral shirt and her dark skin glows in a way that doesn't belong in an all-night drunk palace. Her shoulders drop as her admirers leave and she turns back to the music magazine she's flipping through.

The others hop around the shelves grabbing this and that – a case of beer, a couple bottles of wine from the cheaper end, some toxic blue liquid that turns Brian's stomach just to see it. The blue stuff, one white and one red, a six-pack, he lists it all as it's rung through – bad idea to risk leaving a hidden bottle for Jay to find.

The girl serving steals glances into his face and he turns an eye so she'll keep doing it. Close up, she has a sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks and a gap between her two front teeth. The sort of girl you see with glowing skin in photos to sell sportswear.

“Wish I was going to the party all this is for,” she says.

Old Brian would've made the wish come true – he was famous for turning a small gathering with roommates into a party that pounded the walls with volume of both music and people. Not such a good idea on a small street mostly populated by the elderly.

But she's only one person, and she does have such a pretty smile...

“How long 'til you're done here?” he says with a wink.

They huddle penguin-like outside as she grabs her coat and purse. Simone, her name is. _Get her number. Invite her to go running or something. She looks like a runner_. But he sighs. Ren remains the only girl in his phone, falling to the restaurant floor and crying in the rain while she -

_What's she doing tonight?_

He whips out his phone and brings her up on the text screen. “Having a party tonight, don't know too many people to invite yet. You and the roommates maybe up for it? Just as friends.”

He sends it and right away a bitter taste rises in his throat. _You went on one date weeks back. She doesn't even work with Tim anymore. You're only setting off her creep alarm, and hers must be well-tuned if she looks like that..._

His phone buzzes a minute later. “Directions?”

_Perfect._

Buses thin out to one an hour this late, so they pile into a cab and split the fare. By the time they pull up outside the dark house – Tim's car is in the drive? _Funny. Must've taken Jay's_ \- Ren is on her way from one direction and apparently some people Mark knows are going to convene from another. He laughs, a sudden bark that startles the others. They're the foreseeable future, and he can put the past in the past by inviting them to his present.

Bottles and beers clink together as the group advances and it's the same sound from college parties, only outside his very own house. He puts the key in the lock and touches the wood of the door in a way that's almost tender. The party isn't over, even if the guests aren't what he might have imagined. He turns the key – looking into college courses tomorrow isn't going to happen. But there's always the next day. Or the next. He's got all the time in the world.

 

_I'll sing my song to the wide open spaces_   
_I'll sing my heart out to the infinite sea_   
_I'll sing my visions to the sky-high mountains_   
_I'll sing my song to the free, to the free_

It's worse than watching him have nightmares. When Jay screams in his sleep and twists their blankets into a tangle of terror, at least the horror is only in his head and Tim can shake him from it with a firm grip on one bony shoulder. Awake and aware he lies rigid next to Tim, a hair's breadth of warm air and whole empty oceans between them, and nothing Tim can do about it. He's staring and tensing his back with each shuddery inhale, as though breathing is more than he deserves. Tim kisses under the soft hair at the nape of Jay's neck, only to be met with a startled flinch.

His hand seeks out Jay's clutched against his chest and entwines their fingers. His gentle clasp is returned – signal enough he wants arms around him still. Many a warm afternoon was spent in this bed drifting in and out of sleep, moving only for kisses and cups of coffee, but the occasional hiccuping sob and the stain of wine and vomit on the air strip away the sepia tone and send a chill down his spine.

Tim rubs his eyes, returning his arm to Jay's middle with a delicate hand still in his and checking the clock – two hours since they drove him in silence, not a word passing between them since “Let's get you home”. All quiet except to call Andrea - “you were right, he's fine, thanks for everything, yes, he'll see you tomorrow” - and Amy - “found him, hope you're having a good night, thanks for your help”. He whispered into the phone while Jay showered away the cold and threw up loudly, then followed him to the bedroom. Climbed into the bed that has lain untouched for weeks, lights off to mask the red marks on the carpet.

Still no word nor answer from Brian. If Tim was a better friend, wouldn't he be out looking? He could get out of bed and put his clothes back on, but Jay lets out a whimper that jolts both of them and grips his fingers tighter. Tim pulls him closer, and Jay makes a noise like an injured deer.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?” Tim's voice is croaky, and too loud after their silence.

“I'm not sure,” Jay sniffs.

“If you're back to telling yourself you don't deserve me, you can stop right now.”

Another shuddering breath, but he exhales and lets his shoulders fall a little. “Why aren't you mad?”

“Because... Jay. This isn't about me.”

“You're just saying that to make me feel better.”

“Jay, when do I ever sugarcoat anything? I... okay, if this is what you want to hear, if it reassures you at all, I was really mad when I came home and when I had to go looking in that shitty bar... But now, I'm just glad you haven't done anything stupid, okay?”

Jay turns to him, all wide eyes and a twist at the corners of his lips, in spite of everything. “You sure about that?”

Tim chuckles. “Bad phrasing. I'm glad you haven't done anything _irreversibly_ stupid.”

“But I fucked everything up. Again.” His head falls back onto the pillow, face hidden. “The first time you trusted me with money on my own and I fucked it up.”

“Jay. No. Just turn around again and look at me a second.”

Jay cranes his neck and Tim sits up beside him, pulling him over by the shoulder and placing Jay's hand on his own leg. “You can feel those scars, right?”

Jay nods. The marks are nothing new to his touch, his fingers lingering sometimes when they're in bed, as if to reassure Tim his mistakes are beautiful, too. They've never talked about it – something else they didn't need awkward, wayward words to understand. “Can you feel where the ones on my thigh are quite thin and faded?” He lifts the hand higher, over his hip. “And these were much deeper?”

Jay nods. His eyes find Tim's in the dark and the exploring hand moves from Tim's side and strokes his face, quaky but warm. Tim clasps his palm on Jay's, holding him there. “I stopped doing it when I started college. That was pretty much entirely down to Brian. He saw some marks on my arm one time and he looked so... not shocked In the way other kids were, thinking it confirmed what they already knew about me, sad loner freak and so on, but it was like he couldn't believe I'd do that to myself. He couldn't believe I thought I deserved it. So, I stopped.”

“Until he wasn't there anymore?”

“Yeah. Only once, though. I knew other ways of getting through it by then, music mostly, and it took a lot of effort distracting myself, but eventually I just didn't need it anymore. Threw out the knife and everything.”

“But I'm not like you. You're smarter than me.”

“No, I'm not. There's different kinds of smart, but that's a whole other rant. Look, the point is this; you won't get anywhere putting yourself down and deciding you're doomed before it's even happened. You still have the story you wrote, you've still got the weight you put on. It's up to you, Jay. You fucked up today, but if you decide to, you can make it a blip and not a relapse.”

Jay shuffles up on the bed, resting his head against the board. “I'll try.”

“If there's anything I can do to make it easier or help you through it, just tell me. Nothing's changed. I'm not going anywhere.” He moves Jay's hand to his lips and kisses his knuckles, his long wiry fingers made to create things and spin a sad story into beauty. “I...” he stammers, voice cracking. “I love you, Jay, and I know I always will. I want you near me for the rest of my life. Even if one day you'd prefer to have me around as your buddy and nothing else.”

“Stop,” he sniffs. “You'll get me crying again. I'm sorry I didn't thank you for picking me up.”

“You don't need to. I get it.”

“I love you, too. I love you so much and I want to show you how grateful I am but it's just words, you know? It doesn't make me feel any better to say thanks or sorry.”

“I get it, it's _fine_. Cliché as it is, the best thing you can do to thank me is work on getting better, okay? For _you_. Maybe your appointment tomorrow can help you.”

“Did she _have_ to know?”

“Don't you think she'd have found a way of making you tell her anyway?”

Jay smiles, thin and sad. “I guess so. And if I don't show tomorrow, she knows where I live, and she'll act on that.” He sighs. “I have a problem. I can't really keep telling myself I don't.”

“I know that's hard to deal with, but it's brave of you to own up to it, right? Oh, and your mom wants to speak to you tomorrow, too. She thinks you're sick. Stomach problem.”

“Okay. I'll call when I get back from therapy.”

“I'm going to have to tell Brian what happened, though. Forgive me if I can't leave you alone again for a while.”

“I don't like it, but you're right. I guess there's way worse things than spending a lot of time with Brian. Where is he, anyway?”

“I... don't actually know.”

“Shit. It's late. He's still working?”

“I sure hope they're not working him for more than twelve hours. I'll try his phone again.”

Tim switches his lamp on and skims the bedside table for his phone. Jay rolls closer behind him, an arm around his waist. Tim tenses, then clasps the hand in his own. How much of this is a ploy to earn his trust again and keep him here he wants him? _Is this the right thing to do? Am I an enabler?_ But what else is there to do? Jay's his own person with his own mind, a mind he loves, but should he be angry? _No_. It's his mother talking. Yelling at Jay never helped before. Love isn't something you dangle like bait until the object of your affection does what you want, snatched away when that pesky brain chemistry just won't co-operate. _Love shouldn't be unconditional, I guess, but it shouldn't be blackmail either_.

He finds Brian in his contacts, right at the moment the front door slams shut. He snaps his head toward Jay, who's sitting up, pulling the blanket over himself like it's somehow going to protect him from the home invasion his tired nerves are concocting, and back to the door and the light coming on along the hall. Brian. No-one breaking and entering would announce themselves with a “Whoo!” And a new knot turns in his gut as more than one voice rises from along the hall – guests.

“Guess that answers that question.” Tim rolls his eyes.

“That's Brian?”

“I sure hope so, and I can't see anyone breaking in and advertising themselves with that.” A clatter comes from the living room, then a rhythmic noise bubbles up, getting louder, until bass is pounding through the walls.

Jay presses his ear to the wall and erupts in a giggle. “Is that _Numa Numa_?”

Tim slips into a robe and opens the door; a high-pitched vocal floods the room. “So it is. 2004 called and it wants Brian back.” He sighs. “It's welcome to him.”

“He still thinks we're at my parents' house, right?”

“I guess so. I kind of feel bad clearing them all out, now. Stay in here and I'll get rid of them.”

“Tim! Wait!”

The shout has him rushing to the bedside. “What's up?”

“Nothing, just... I know what you're going to think, but how about we go and join them?”

Tim frowns. Jay's eyes are wide and looking right into his own and he's gathering the blankets all quick and nimble. _If only_. “I hate treating you like this, but after today, can you give me any good reason to believe you're not doing this to go and find more to drink?”

“I know how it looks. I do feel kind of sick so I don't want to drink more, if that counts for anything. I don't know. I've never been a party guy, but... I guess I feel like today can't go any more wrong. I don't want to stay in here, either. I don't know, the urge is just there, and it might not be again for a long time. Maybe if I go down there and talk to people like a normal person, today doesn't have to be a total screw-up.”

“I really want to believe that -”

“Look, how about you stay close to me and keep an eye on me?”

A pause. _Good job, Brian_. A decision of this weight demands a suspenseful silence, or at least a Hans Zimmer score, anything a little more highbrow than four or five wasted students trying to sing in Romanian. “Okay. We'll try it. As long as you understand that if I see you with a drink or smell booze on your breath I will knock it out of your hand and drag you back in here in front of everyone.”

Jay grabs some gum from the table. “I know. But the world is full of it, right? I have to learn to resist some time.”

“I guess that's true. If it gets too much, just tell me and we'll come back in here.”

Tim picks through the scattered clothing on the floor, but most of it is damp or peppered with Rosswood plant life. He pulls fresh jeans and a shirt – the grey and yellow one, the brightest thing he owns now the chimp monstrosity doesn't fit - out of the wardrobe, throwing Jay pants and his nice blue shirt from his side. They stop and smile. _Our first time getting ready for a party together_. He places a hand on the small of Jay's back and reels him in for a kiss, the mint on his breath a thin mask for everything that went wrong today. Tim takes his trembling hand and holds it as they walk into the living room together.

A couple of slim girls in high heels are lounging with glasses of something colourful in hand by the kitchen counter, raising their eyebrows at the two new entrants. Tim flashes them a crooked grin, which works well enough in quelling them. A few figures obscured in shadow stand behind them and an older woman and a stringy-haired boy are laughing together on the couch, while another man maybe their age perches on the edge, nodding his head to the music. _How the hell did he smuggle a Proclaimers album into my house?_

In the middle of the room, where he always belonged, is Brian, resplendent in shutter shades and a dark red shirt halfway unbuttoned. In the dim lighting all signs of age and sorrow are wiped clean from his face – his eyes obscured, all Tim sees is a beaming smile, twisted into a holler as he belts out the music in a terrible Scottish that drowns out even the battering volume from the hi-fi; “And ah would walk five hundred my-els!”

Tim marches up, fighting the smile on his face, and grabs him by the shoulder. “What were the two rules I gave you when you moved in here?”

“No power ballads without headphones and no parties without a two-thirds majority. _Mom,_ ” Brian hiccups.

“I've overlooked you consistently flouting the first, but...”

Jay laughs. “I'm just getting a drink from the kitchen. Water, don't worry.”

Tim's hand lingers at his elbow as he walks behind the counter, and Brian puts his hands on his hips and pouts. “Thought you guys were away tonight. I was going to clean up.” He shakes himself. “Is everything okay?”

Brian's swaying as he stands, but he's not stupid. Tim leans in to the perfect angle for whispering and bodily support. “Not really. Jay had... kind of a relapse today. I think he's okay for now -”

Brian gasps, like the news soaked up all the intoxicant in his system right away. “Fuck, Tim, if I'd known I would never, ever have brought all this into the house. Do you need me to get rid of them all?”

“Let's sit down.” Tim guides Brian's haphazard feet across the room, holding him up when a girl with curly hair swoops in to kiss his cheek and he trips over himself. “Who was that?”

“Her name's Simone. We picked her up in the liquor store. Said she wanted to join the party we were buying all this for, so we said why not?”

 _Why not indeed?_ Brian's free to lead all the random strangers he likes into his house, like the Pied Piper of ill-advised decisions. _Then again, they couldn't mess up the place more than we have_ He laughs to himself. Tim makes for the music room, where none of the other guests have ventured. Even in his drunken stupor, Brian's good enough to show respect for the instruments. “I was trying to get in touch with you, but you've had your phone off.”

“We all went for a drink after work and I just forgot to switch it back on. Sorry if I scared you. Want me to get rid of them?”

“It was Jay's idea to come down. We're fine so far, but if you could just watch him in case he, you know.” Jay is in the kitchen, filling a glass in the sink.

Brian follows the direction of his look. “We put all the booze in the living room. He's fine for now. I think the best thing to do is distract him. I'll introduce him to Luke – I was thinking all night how well they'd get along.” Brian points at the couch in the living room. “He's our tech guy. He's a film student and I think they might be friends!”

“So these are people you work with?”

“For the most part. Everyone's okay once you chill around them and stop worrying.”

“I'm glad one of us had a good day.” Tim leans over the see behind the door – Jay's still in the kitchen, looking up at a tall figure with their back to him. Talking with his hands and throwing himself back in laughter, not hunching in on himself as usual.

“I swear he's been getting better this whole time, Tim. He was trying for real.”

“I can see that. If nothing else, he's a terrible liar, right? But I hope so, so much. It's never a straight line, getting better, you know? I've just got to remember that.”

“Hey, me too. Ups and downs,” says Brian, laughing, but his smile falls away when the music stops. “I guess I'm due for a fall after tonight.”

“Don't look at it like that.” They both sink back on the sofa. It wouldn't be the first time Brian has sat with him when raucous laughs and loud music got oto much. _He doesn't mind, does he?_ He's slumped with his head thrown back, summoning enough energy to show Tim a lopsided grin. They stay quiet and still together for a moment, until Jay walks into the frame of the doorway.

“Tim? There's someone who wants to speak to you in the kitchen.”

“But I don't know anyone here.”

“That's where you're wrong,” says Brian, rolling forward and slapping his knees. “I have a couple other numbers in my phone and there's someone else I knew wouldn't be working tomorrow.”

Ren is leaning against the sink, one arm holding a glass of wine and the other around the waist of a blonde girl whose face is covered by her hair as she looks at the floor. Ren stoops to kiss her on the cheek, puts down her drink, and throws her arms around Tim. All his muscles tense at the unwarranted invasion on his personal space, but her body stretching so much longer than his is warm and there's a calming smell like jasmine in her hair.

They draw apart and she smiles. “So that's Jay?”

“Yeah. That's Jay.”

“The two of you actually look like the cast of every twink and bear video on the internet.”

Tim arches a brow. “You've seen every single one, have you?”

“Doesn't matter. It's cute, though. Your place is cute. And speaking of cute, this is my girlfriend, Amy.”

He starts at the name, and sure enough, Alex Kralie's Amy is not only alive and well and helping him out, but she's in his kitchen. She lifts her head from the ground, chatting to Brian, who's done his usual thing of sweeping in on the one party guest who can't meet his eyes. Tim shrugs and offers his hand. _Stranger things have happened_. Amy has already demonstrated a liking for tall, pretentious smartasses, after all.

“That's really great for you. How long has that been going on?”

“Couple of weeks. Same kind of thing that happened with you and Jay, actually – we were living together and one thing led to another. But! What I wanted to say was -” she nods her head toward the corner, where Tim follows, for privacy. “She told me you've already met. When she described you I put two and two together and I'm just glad Jay's okay. I watched him the whole time we were talking.”

“I appreciate that.”

“I even held back from trying to fluster him for my own entertainment.”

“Wow.”

“See? I can be nice when I feel like it. I'm not going to pry, because I can tell you guys like your privacy, but I really meant it when you said you could talk to me about anything. If you want someone who's not involved to listen. But the other thing is Amy.” She looks over her shoulder and Tim catches a small smile, the same one he fights when he sees Jay helping himself to crackers or sorting his laundry.

“She's had some troubles, too. Her old boyfriend ran off with her roommate, which is shitty enough already, right?”

“Definitely,” says Tim. If only she knew how much better that knowledge was than the alternative. He says nothing. _If she doesn't remember, she doesn't need to_.

“It happened a few years back – she just found their place empty one time. It was after she had... well, we're not sure. Some kind of fugue state she couldn't remember, she just woke up in the woods miles from home. It happened again every time she tried to get her life together.”

Tim nods. “That's awful. Any idea what happened?”

“We've tried, but you know how it is. Doctors are useless, these crusty old men who look at a young woman and just assume she wondered off when she was high or drunk or whatever, and we're only students, we can't pay them enough to care. I'm telling you this because... I don't want to seem like I'm saying all mental health problems are the same, because that's not true at all, but -”

“No, I'm with you. You can have different conditions but there's still common ground, distance from people and stuff -”

“Exactly! So if we're all staying friends, you guys have clearly had some things go really wrong, you can look out for her, yeah?”

The music stops. Things go on as they are, Brian laughing with Amy – _does he know who she is?_ \- and Jay on the sofa with a stringy-haired kid who must be Luke. Only weeks ago this floor was littered with the debris of their collected trauma and no-one could cross the threshold but them. Drink flows free and glows around the party guests, Tim drifting between them to the sofa.

“- and the funny part is that 'manos' is literally the Spanish word for 'hands', so the title of the thing translates as _Hands: the Hands of Fate_ ,” says Jay. Luke the film student gazes at him like he's Hitchcock reborn into a dull green hoodie. Tim flops down onto the arm of the couch beside him and throws an arm over his shoulder. Jay jumps next to him, but if anyone else notices, they're too busy moving out of time to bad music to so much as lift an eyebrow. Only Luke beside them takes this as a chance to fetch himself another drink.

“You're okay?” he whispers to Jay.

He nods, staring off across the room, before shaking himself and nuzzling into the warm spot under Tim's chin. Tim grins and kisses the crown of his head. “You're feeling okay? You don't need to go back upstairs?”

He shakes his head. “I'm dealing with it. This is just so... surreal, I guess. Maybe that's why I'm not scared of all these people. They're not real. I know logically there's nothing to be afraid of, but my brain won't always see it that way.”

“I know. I'm proud of you for trying.”

“Really? After today?”

“The bad doesn't have to cancel out the good. I don't know. I don't want to talk in platitudes. You can do well at something and not be perfect.” Their fingers find each other in the half-light. “Jay, I still love you. I want to help you through the bad days, if you have what it takes to make them bad days.”

Jay tightens his grip on his hand, nodding. “Yeah. I do.”

“Then I'm yours.” Tim presses him in with both arms.

“You don't need to manhandle me, I'm not going to try anything with all these people here.” He says it while wriggling out, but he turns to Tim with a smile. “Luke's coming over for a B-movie night, if that's okay with you?”

“It's your house, too.”

“I thought it might be something to look forward to, and it'll be good to see people other than you two.”

“You made a friend. You see? You're doing it.” Maybe having a younger friend who'll see him as a font of knowledge, who's not sorted out with a steady job and their own place and all these things to make him feel left behind yet, is the best thing for Jay.

Ren leaves the kitchen and passes in a blur before his eyes, swaying enough to join Brian on the carpeted space that functions as a dance floor. “I'll be back.” He steps up and takes her by the arm, earning a raise of an arched eyebrow.

“How serious were you, before?” he hisses.

“About what?”

“The shelter thing.” He takes a deep breath. _Jay's being brave. You can do the same right now_.

“Well, totally, but we're doing this right now? I've had a little too much to drink.”

“I haven't, and I think I want to try this. What would you need me for?”

“Okay, well, it's like I said. I can deal with the general public and you can keep the books and stuff. And I guess we'd be setting up for the first few weeks.”

Tim nods, and before long they're back to the music, and he's even bobbing along. _You've had no blackouts for months. You can do this_. Coincidences that get you into trouble fall at his feet, so how stupid would he be to pass up good luck when it pays a flying visit? All kinds of things could go wrong. Running a business takes its toll on the best and most balanced people – or could it be that any worries over accounts and profit margins won't seem so insurmountable after everything impossible he's already dealt with?

“So we'd just be walking in and it's all set up?”

“I _told_ you, we'll talk about it when I'm sober. But don't worry. I have some money I saved from selling bits of writing online and I was going to use it to buy instruments but – why's that funny?”

“Just... you've got to be making it up. You write, you do music, you know everything, I call you and you're in the middle of _painting_ -”

“Did I ever say I was good at any of those things?” She laughs and sips her drink, looking uncharacteristically at the floor. “To let you in on a secret, Amy is pretty much the only social interaction I have outside of work. I spend the rest of my time learning things to impress people I never have chance to meet, basically.”

“Are you saying that to make me feel better?”

“About what? Ooh, is this the long-awaited moment I get your tragic backstory? One shameful secret for another? Kidding, kidding, don't tense up like that. Though I guess maybe you'll feel less scared of me now and if you ever want an ear for whatever it is went wrong in your life, well, I'm there.” She hiccups and laughs. “Actually I'm just babbling at this point. Point. Point is, you get good at things by doing them, everyone's friendless for a while, and we're all hiding something. End.”

There's a couple of “Well said”s as she finishes, and the usual Ren returns to bow a little and flick her long hair over he bare shoulder. Tim smiles. She's right, as ever. If she's carrying loneliness around but masking it so well, maybe he is, too.

“I'll drink to that,” he says. “Partner.”

“Partner,” she returns, winking and jutting her chin in the direction of Jay on the couch.

They could afford a new one once business picks up, less beaten and used. He'd have to buy nicer clothes to wear every day, and maybe Jay would look at him like he did that afternoon where they lay together on this floor. _You get good at things by doing them_. Maybe confidence is one. What will Jay be thinking now he's on a downer? That Tim is embarrassed by him, wouldn't want everyone to know. So he takes his seat beside Jay and he pulls him in and kisses him, quick but hard, on the lips.

“What did I do to earn that?”

“Just being here.”

“That's Ren, right?” He blinks. “She's terrifying.”

“You just have to get used to her.”

“What were you talking about?”

“I might have our money problems sort of worked out. I'll tell you about it tomorrow when everything's settled and we'll see if you think it's a good plan or not.”

Jay nods. They sit leaning on each other as drunken dancing staggers on into tomorrow. The CD on the hi-fi finishes long before the drink does – which is when Brian grabs the guitar from behind the couch where they're sat.

“How about you guys quit being all over each other for five minutes and play a song with me? Jam time!”

“I'm not musical,” Jay says right off the bat, which is a lie, as Tim's heard his high clear singing voice a couple times when his headphones gave him cover. A shame to keep a beautiful sound confined. So he takes the keyboard as his greatest friend hands it to him, and hands that have never before played for more than one person dance across the keys.

 

 _This song is over, I'm left with only tears  
I must remember, even if it takes a million years  
__The song is over, the song is over  
__Searching for a note, pure and easy  
__Playing so free, like a breath rippling by_  
\- The Who

 _I got lucky_.

Jay sits under the window barely breathing lest he wake Tim, who has already groaned at his shrapnel-on-cast-iron typing speed. He's still writing his paragraph so the day – whatever the clock says, it's still today if he hasn't been to sleep - won't count as a complete fuck-up. The blanket and the handsome man sleeping beneath it are beckoning, he yawns long and wide, but what if he wakes and the first thing on his mind is finding something to drink? If it's a battle with bottled comfort from now on, better to make the most of peacetime while it lasts.

Tim sleeps sound and steady these days, his chest rising and falling gently with his soft breath. _God. He even snores beautifully_. Still the shape of his eyebrows makes them look permanently raised, giving an incredulous look to his otherwise placid face. Jay laughs. They've always been in the dark, avoiding each other's eyes, but it's perfect. So typical he'd still look disgusted by something as he sleeps. Jay shivers all over and on cue Tim rolls onto his side and whimpers, patting half-awake at the empty space where Jay should be. He only smiles. He'll join him soon. Until then, Tim's not going anywhere.

 _Are you sat_ _isfied that he loves you now, asshole?_ Jay winces, the glare of the laptop stinging sore and weary eyes. Tim is his own person making his own decisions, even on a day like today. Sure. _That doesn't make me feel better_. The mere act of loving Jay is such a huge and incredible task to ask of a person... but then, Tim is pretty incredible.

And perhaps the demands aren't what they used to be. When the very pretty dark-haired girl – Chloe? - Brian introduced made eyes at Tim and asked him to accompany her to get a drink, Jay didn't scowl, didn't need to follow them, didn't picture Tim making home with her and not him. Instead he sat with a smug smile when Tim returned and kissed him on the lips in front of everyone. And he's right, as usual. Today, yesterday, whatever it is as a sliver of sun pokes over the roof of the house opposite – it can be an anomaly if he tries hard enough. _And_ _I_ _will_.

He'll call home first – they deserve that much. _You fucking idiot_. All he had to do was put the bottle back in the closet and sit on his ass until Tim came home and they could be in his old room full of pie and potatoes right now. _What would Andrea say?_ Something about forgiving himself and moving forward, only she'd make him believe it. _Tomorrow will tell, I guess. And hey, you got to go to the party in the end._ Before the appointment he'll help Tim clean up after the night's unexpected revelry, too, since Brian's likely to be out of action until at least mid-afternoon. Jay had one arm draped over both of his helping him to bed at two in the morning after all his cohorts left, despite his protestations of not being all that drunk – when he wasn't too busy warbling a selection of mid-2000s party songs with a vague approximation of a Scottish accent.

Student Jay spent many an evening on the battered sofa of an acquaintance in one shitty rented room or another, watching cooler classmates make the happiest fools of themselves around him. Always perched on the edge of his seat as rigid and silent as a gargoyle trying to think of something to say. But a friend you have to impress isn't a friend worth having, surely. Nobody should have to perform to be cared for. He only has to... be, same as anyone.

It can't be easy to have a great time in college and spend the rest of your life missing it. To have the right balance of independence and irresponsibility, then get launched into work you hate for fifty years. At least Jay's life from here can really, literally, only get better.

Mostly. He sighs. What's done is done, and the light of another dawn is creeping through the curtains already, outshining the blue haze of the laptop.

He taps in his mom's email address and bashes out a few lines. Platitudes mostly – sorry for cancelling on them, he hoped he'd be better soon, and no, mom, it's not ebola or Bubonic plague or anything to warrant a hospital visit. He hovers over send, then attaches a few photos of Tim and the house, and one of handyman Brian posing with a hammer and one sleeve rolled up. How different does his childhood home look after years of grief have lived in it? Once upon a time the place was a home, not a three-bedroom maze riddled with traps to trip him and make him admit to something he's trying to hide.

Dwelling is useless. _You can make th_ _is a blip if you want to_. His gut gurgles, not only because he spent the afternoon poisoning himself. He won't be doing it again when his thirst is quenched to the point of sickness, but what about the day after? What'll happen next time he's in the house with only himself and writing no-one reads for company? And how many chances are Tim and his short temper going to give him?

 _Peaks and troughs_. He'll cross that bridge when he comes to it. Thinking about all the hours he'll have to grind his teeth and push on won't help – it'll be one day at a time, with times where it's easy and being alive to watch the sun set is enough in between. Tim is there and so is Brian, and after tonight, who knows who else? He types in the name of their town to check vacancies on the page he's had sitting open for half an hour. Nothing more than a few retail jobs offering just enough hours to cover his transport and too many people he's not ready for. Unready - not incapable. If charming Brian can almost get fired for panicking in one week then party in his home with the same people a little while later, well, there's hope for Jay, too. He has B-movie night and Tim's eye-rolling to look forward to.

And then there's Amy.

So, Alex didn't succeed with her where he failed with them. She wasn't a drunken guilt-fueled hallucination, either. To have her turn up on the arm of Tim's co-worker, laughing without a care in the world, is maybe as close to miracle as any of them are likely to get. A bright smile free from memory.

“Let's keep it that way,” Tim said. “She's going to want answers some time, if she doesn't already, especially since the doctors can't find anything to pin it on. So it's up to us to steer her away from that.”

Jay huffed. “Helping someone with a mental illness. That's a thing I am totally equipped for.”

“Look on it as helping a friend, because we're all going to be _friends_ ,” slurred Brian, not even remotely equipped for this. The whole thing will have to be repeated to him tomorrow, yet he wasn't wrong. She was good to him in the bar, for the shards he can remember, and if she's dating Ren, with whom Tim is concocting something - “I don't want to say yet, but you'll be begging me to bring work home with me” - they're going to see a lot more of her.

“The best thing, I think, is to do as much as we can to make her life now happy enough she doesn't need to go pressing old problems.” Tim's suggestion, received by Jay with a concurring nod but also an inward cursing in hindsight. What can he do? They're bound to share at least a few films in common, right? Same for Tim and music. Brian? Everybody loves Brian.

 _We're good people to be friends with, whatever else we are. I think_. He frowns – this isn't their decision to make, and real friends would let her make her own choices. But wouldn't they also stop a real friend from making choices without full knowledge of the consequences? He wouldn't advise Amy to sign a work contract without the fine print on offer and perhaps this is the same, and it's better she go through the rest of her life never thinking of Alex or Jessica except in elaborate revenge fantasies.

He's still grinning to think of Brian and Tim's little jam session. The first time Tim has played a song in front of anyone but him. He deserves to be the centre of attention for something he's doing, rather than something his illness did. The red-haired lady – Lauren? Laurel? He's never been good with names – took an awful long time choosing another CD and smiled the whole time. Did Tim notice?

“Funny she turned up here as well as us,” Jay said after, quiet as he could with the loud music in the background.

“Amy? Not really. She was living here before she got unlucky. Figures.”

“Yeah. Ever wish you could believe we were all meant to be together or something?”

Tim snorted, and reached a hand into his hair. “With you being the reluctant hero.”

“It's not just me being cynical, is it? There isn't a moral to this. It's not a lesson. Bad things just happen to people who don't deserve it.”

“I think that's a pretty sensible way to look at it, actually. Things don't necessarily happen for a reason. But you can give them one, maybe? None of us should have had to live like we did. I guess I still wish I could take all that time back, but some good came out it too, right? Brian's putting himself out there and helping people with the same problems, I'm trying to be an example that you can learn to live with this, and your writing is out there now. It might be a comfort to anyone reading it.”

 _They have to bother reading it first_. Is waiting around someone to comment what messed up today in the first place? Perhaps that's where he's gone wrong all this time – waiting for someone else to make it all better. This friend or that friend. That set of tapes he salvaged because he felt sorry for them, worked on and loved and then discarded.

“Do you think... all of that, was it worth it? If we get to be happy together?”

Tim gave out a slow exhale and dropped his head against the couch. “I think repeatedly asking that is a pretty efficient way of driving yourself mad. Come on. This is a party. Let's not be walking quiet guy stereotypes and stop with the philosophising.”

“What should we do instead? I even can't remember what else you do at parties.”

“I might have one idea.” Tim grinned that wicked grin and cupped his face, bringing him in for a kiss. Before he knew it Jay had his tongue in his mouth and a cheer went up from everyone else, but he didn't even blush. He wound his arms around Tim's neck and stroked his hair, both of them saying the same thing with no words necessary; _we're happy together. That's the important part_.

Is he doing that thing he shouldn't where he overanalyses every interaction? Jay shakes his head. _No_ . He's going over some good memories. The kind that make him wish he felt safer around cameras. _Or is this in itself an overanalysis?_

He clicks and the email to his mom's address flashes up sent a second later. Maybe he can turn up on their doorstep and talk about his new group of friends. He could send the link to his story and show the comments on it, too – when there's something to show. He's listed snippets of lyrics from songs he's heard on albums Tim plays and liked – he can look them up of his own accord and they can pick out music for him to listen to together. It'll be something to do while Jay's top five films are Totally Legally inching their way onto his hard drive - Tim's idea. Jay runs his fingers over the spot on his jaw where Tim first kissed him, shivering. _You kissed him back and started this. That was a brave thing to do. Keep doing it_.

There's only one website he hasn't checked since he put the computer on. All the diversions are gone. So the story is still sitting there with no remarks on it. _Okay, fine_. Nothing he hasn't dealt with already. But what if it's worse? What if any good he saw in his phrasing just isn't there for a reader and they felt like saying so? What if the image just doesn't work on paper? And if -

 _Jay. Just get it over with_.

He types in the URL and re-enters his password, _pigeons1234,_ though he can barely type with the tremors in his hands sending his fingers flying to every key but the one he's trying to hit. _Come on. After everything that's happened to you that you didn't sign up for, you can handle a bad review_. The blue and white layout loads in frames, block by block, like the laptop knows he's waiting on this and is taking its sweet time as some kind of revenge for his relentless overwork of the poor machine. He drums his fingers on the keyboard, stopping when the sound makes Tim grunt in his sleep. Fetching stubble is darkening along his jaw. He'll still be there, whatever this review says.

Finally, the inbox link appears, its text and the additional (1) bolded like it knows how important this is. One comment next to a whole fifty hits – that can't be good news, can it? Why did he think it was a good idea to put his first story on a place as mean as the internet right away? Now any time he tries to write more and improve he'll remember the harsh words and -

He positions the cursor and clicks.

This time the screen swipes almost instantly He turns away fast as whiplash, casting fretful sidelong glances like a kid up past his bedtime watching a film he's not allowed to. It's long, a few paragraphs. He pulls at a loose thread of his T-shirt, tickling his neck. That's a good sign? Would anyone really take all the time to type out several paragraphs of hate? _Well. This is the internet_. But there's only one way to know.

“ _Read this earlier today, and it's taken me 'til now to form a response.”_

The first sentence from user clearwave. _Is it really so bad that they had to – no, now you're actually being ridiculous_. He purses his lips and reads on.

“ _I always try to give encouragement to new writers on the site, but I didn't expect this to hit home the way it did. I wanted to thank you for writing it. I've been dealing with some mental health issues I won't derail your story with here, and the protagonist's dilemma facing a long fall and impenetrable darkness with time running out is as vivid a depiction of that as any.”_

Jay blinks.

“ _I expect you already know this, but you're a gifted writer with a knack for visceral depiction of a person's inner monologue.”_

 _I didn't but good to know..._ He clicks down.

“ _I've let myself become very isolated from people I care about, and out and out insulted them at times. Now I feel like I can use the metaphor you wrote to explain how I'm feeling and how all my decisions aren't really my own right now. But more than that, some of this – what you said about resenting people's sure footing - actually made me feel a lot better about myself.”_

 _This person gets it_. He's nodding as he reads, taking in every sentence twice to be sure he's not dreaming.

“ _I don't feel alone anymore.”_

Apparently, Jay _does_ have tears left to cry, they've just been hiding well.

“ _I'm glad this guy decided to turn away from the cliff before the decision was made for him. I won't pry into what happened to you to make you write this, but I hope you found a path away from your own cliff, too.”_

“I did,” Jay whispers, wiping his eyes. And more than that... _I helped_. He lifts a fist to his mouth to stifle an erupting laugh that threatens to disturb Tim. Okay, it's not a dramatic rescue of a damsel in distress from a dark, malevolent force beyond his control, it's not bringing a broken man back from the brink. He never found a way to safeguard the rest of the world. He can't find a reset button to take him back eight years. But... his words finding their way across the country to bring a little light to someone in the darkness he knows only too well... That's still something, right?

He's something good to tell Andrea tomorrow, now – his own moonlit path through the darkness. _I owe her so much_. When he has some money of his own he can be trusted with, he'll buy her a bunch of flowers and kiss her cheek. Invite her over for dinner, maybe. He has Tim, even after everything, and a friend in Brian, and now Amy and the infamous Ren - he'll have no trouble with her around.

 _Lucky_.

Alex always said a work of art was only completed once it found an audience to interpret it, and perhaps that's what's been missing from the piece this whole time.

He grins to himself. _Are you calling yourself a work of art, now?_

He pulls off his shirt, too hot anyway, and drifts his fingers over the silver netting of scrapes and scratches covering his upper body, down to the larger gash on his stomach. He walks to the mirror on the inside of their wardrobe, his arms uncrossed to display his bare chest. He turns this way and that, and yeah, there is a difference. He can't fit a whole hand down his jeans like he used to. Taking them off involves effort instead of letting them fall to the floor as he once would. In nothing but boxers there's still a smile on his own face. His face, which doesn't look like a lot of other people's. That does not have to be a bad thing. Still here, still standing and smiling in spite of everything.

_Yeah. Okay. I'm art._

He left himself in the back of an attic room until his lines started to blur and his colours faded – the Greek chorus he found on Youtube most certainly does _not_ count as an audience. The scars on his wrist have paled to lavender. What could he have expected when all he did was think about thinking?

Alex told him to look people in the eye and not through the camera, and maybe he'd be proud. Alex. He'd absolutely have turned out to be one of those people who never quite left college behind. Of course, he'd insist otherwise, say his Starbucks uniform was performance art or research for his next indie opus. _I'd give anything to see that_. A smug smirk, striped shirts, glasses, all some height above him – Jay sees him and he doesn't cry, doesn't shake, doesn't do anything but keep his bittersweet smile. Alex Kralie made his choices, let his pride keep those cursed tapes in the world, and so they ended up.

But it's not Jay's fault. He can cry for a lost life and for lost years, but what does it solve to let it stop him carving a new path in life?

Tim turns over in bed with a pleading sort of groan. _Do not fuck this up_. Here he has someone he always wanted, a friend who can finish his stammered half-sentences for him and meet him line for line quoting comedy and show him new things he'd never have thought of. For life. Maybe not the sort of life he'd win an Oscar for putting on screen, but he could have drama or he could have back rubs on tap and stupid jokes for years.

 _Besides_. A certain amount of breathless drama is inherent to loving someone so completely. The creeping sense of stones slipping away from under him as he waits above the sea rushes back, but there's a settling in his stomach like a tide going out. Dune grass brushes his skin and he's alive. He's back on the cliff about to fall and perhaps this is what it's like to have faith in something – swooping down like a gull and hoping you'll land right. Being in love. It's a fragile thing easy to lose grip of and let fall, but that doesn't make it any less real.

Jay's laughter snorts into life as realisation catches up with him, borne on the wind from a rain-soaked park all those years ago.

 _Love is like four balls on the edge of a cliff_.

They've been living a real and ugly version of that awful script that brought them together on dreaded days so long ago. Coming home and finding nothing fits the same – he never found out the ending, if Brian's ridiculous on-screen counterpart got the girl and found a new place in the world or not. But at least out here in the world he's free to choose his own ending.

He walks into the bathroom, joints cracking. Brian murmurs something in the other room, and Jay smiles, catching himself in the mirror in the corner of his eye. Jay may not have the most white or even teeth, but yeah, there's a charm and a light to him when he's happy. The smell of wet wood and the chatter of the rest of the movie cast in the background follow him in here. If he closes his eyes Tim is still standing next to him shuffling from one foot to the other, still finding the space between the cap and the camera.

“When you grow up, a few years from now,” he'd say with a wink, “you're going to fall in love with me.”

He'd smirk and preen a little while Tim rubbed his hair, his beautiful hair, and squinted at him. “Yeah, right,” he'd mutter, and saunter away with a cigarette dangling from his lip. Or maybe not. Perhaps he'd frown into the plume of exhaled smoke and notice the way Jay's eyes glitter a little when he smiles – like now, in the mirror of the bathroom they share - and he'd like it enough to make him want to do it again. Maybe he'd notice they're the only two people left in the park since everyone else went to dinner, and maybe they should go find some shelter from the rain.

Jay shrugs and heads back to the bedroom, laptop glowing blue on the floor. A chill strikes him as he goes back to shut off the laptop. Cold won't last once he's under their blankets. But there's one thing he could do to bring the piece closer to a finish. He finds the editing options, and opens the box to add a footnote. He writes “For A. K.” and closes the browser. He'll reply tomorrow.

Tomorrow. If he wakes in fear sweat with a dream phantom clinging hot on his heels, there'll be strong arms around him until morning and safety. But perhaps he'll rise with the sun, lips on his neck and and a body pressing against his to usher him into a new day. A new day is what it is and he won't drink, he'll eat if he feels the need to fill himself and he'll take flowers to Andrea and he'll call his wonderful mother to let her know how he cares, like he never has before. Sleep, rise, repeat, until all of this is just debris.

Was it worth everything that happened to bring him to this precipice of bliss? Tim's right about a lot of things, but this most of all – that's a guaranteed way to drive himself mad.

Jay slips his laptop into the drawer under the bedside table. The room is still full of shadows too dark to see, and maybe he'll never turn in without checking for spectres outside, but tonight there's no need. All the window shows is a quiet suburb ringed with tall pines silhouetted against the fading stars of four in the morning, a car in the drive, and a pale man on the glass above it all. He stands in a dark room, smiling and stealing glances at the man he shares his bed with, before he switches out the light to leave only the window frame for the rest of the world to look at. Indistinguishable, at least on the outside, from any other house along the street.

 

_**THE END** _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are. Just shy of two years went into the planning and writing of this story, and as I prepare to launch myself into my original work again, I want to thank everyone who read and supported this story while it unfolded. There are some impressive numbers up there, more than I ever could've hoped for, but trust me when I say every kudos and comment meant as much as the others. I've grown both as a writer and in confidence thanks to the lovely feedback I've received for this story, and remember the effect you had on a stranger's life on your bad days, okay?  
> The construction of this story was incredibly personal and cathartic for me and helped me vent a lot of turbulence I went through over the last few years. Placing these characters on new and unexpected paths in life helped me accept the fact that my life won't turn out the way I always wanted it to, and made me excited for the new directions I'm free to take myself in. Knowing what I wrote both interested and resonated with people has made me feel validated, made me feel listened to, and more than anything it's cleansed me of a lot of residual anger and confusion.  
> I know it's only a fanfiction, but I'm very proud of this story and the way it's made people feel. I count some of you I met through this among my very best friends now, and I think it's beautiful that something as simple as posting a fic online can alter the course of someone's life in big and unexpected ways. Thank you all, again, and please come and say hi on my Tumblr of the same name if you ever wish to!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Stash of Powders, Paints, and Pretty Things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1886346) by [jaythewriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaythewriter/pseuds/jaythewriter)
  * [Out of control](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2057409) by [jaythewriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaythewriter/pseuds/jaythewriter)
  * [LBaS: Christmas Edition](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2669441) by [jaythewriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaythewriter/pseuds/jaythewriter)
  * [Spontaneous Adventurers Co.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4028149) by [Go0se](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go0se/pseuds/Go0se)
  * [a twink, an emotional lumberjack, and a therapist walk into a forest](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5497133) by [jaythewriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaythewriter/pseuds/jaythewriter)
  * [gunpowder and booze](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5663980) by [jaythewriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaythewriter/pseuds/jaythewriter)




End file.
